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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24540523">Lost and Found</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/RZZMG/pseuds/RZZMG'>RZZMG</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Hermione x Draco stories [47]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Dark, Bigotry &amp; Prejudice, Dark, Dramione don't die - Character death is other, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Heavy Angst, Heterosexual Sex, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Lies, Love Triangles, Manipulation, Mind Manipulation, Miscarriage, Obsession, Past Relationship(s), Prequel, Second War with Voldemort, Seduction, Spells &amp; Enchantments, Time Travel, Trust Issues, Unplanned Pregnancy, War</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 11:00:27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>33,110</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24540523</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/RZZMG/pseuds/RZZMG</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Prequel to "Three".</p><p>What was lost can be found again in the chaos of war....</p><p>After taking off four months earlier, one late afternoon Ron Weasley returns to Hermione Granger and Harry Potter's encampment with an unexpected surprise in tow: a bloodied, battered Draco Malfoy, who has just saved Ron's life from his fellow Death Eaters. The fallen Slytherin wasn't acting from a place of altruism, though, and Hermione knows it. He wants something from her, but she can't guess what it might be or the depths of his obsession with her until he makes himself available for use by the Second Order of the Phoenix.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy, Hermione Granger/Viktor Krum</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Hermione x Draco stories [47]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/332626</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>57</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>125</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Return</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This was my intended 2018 HP Shore-Of-Angst Fest fic entry that never made it to the fest on time (hp-shoreofangst . livejournal . com). </p><p>My prompts for the fest were:</p><p>- Dramione or Harmony<br/>- Draco rescued<br/>- Drama-angst<br/>- Ron must play an important role in the tale - please don't bash him too badly</p><p>Thank you to my lovely beta, Wronskiifeint and my alpha, Ladysashi! You ladies feed the muses and keep me centered, and I am eternally grateful!</p><p>TIMELINE: Set during the war (Spring to Summer 1998) - A/U events<br/>TIMELINE NOTES: Remember that Ron left Harry and Hermione sometime in the autumn of 1997 in novel canon, sometime around the 3rd of September (after Hermione consulted the portrait of Phineas Nigellus she carries around in her beaded bag and learned about the sword of Gryffindor destroying horcruxes - according to hp-lexicon dot org, which has a pretty reliable timeline established from the novel source). As such, I am stating in this fic that Ron left them on the 3rd of September, 1997, which would put this fic's starting point at early January, 1998.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>
    
  </p>
</div><hr/><p>It had been four months since Ron had abandoned them, taking off without a plan, but with plenty to say...</p><p>That morning had been particularly difficult, as they'd had to move their encampment once again. Fear had dodged their heels as they'd packed up, and as they took hands and unwittingly shared the miasma of evil that oozed from Slytherin's cursed locket, that unnamed terror had been only amplified. Yet, after settling down in the new spot far from the stink and noise of a city, Hermione had felt reasonably safe, enough that she'd returned to her research. Harry had walked the perimeter on sentry duty. Ron...</p><p>Her friend had sat alone in the main area of the tent, watching her through the dim lighting with eyes that gleamed with an unholy light.</p><p>She'd done her best to ignore it, not wanting to provoke another fight as there had been too many lately. It had been an awkward and uncomfortable few hours, however.</p><p>Around noon, they'd had lunch together in the tent, a modest soup she'd thrown together from some of the Muggle canned goods she kept in her beaded bag's stores and a heating charm. It had been warm and filling...and yet there had been entirely too much tension in the room to relax.</p><p>With nothing else to occupy the time, Hermione had returned to her research, and soon after, had found a clue. After consulting the portrait of Phineas Nigellus with her hypothesis, they'd actually won a major victory in gaining new information on how to destroy horcruxes...and Hermione had felt a burst of pride and a blooming of hope. Finally, her skill set had been put to some good use on this exhausting and often disheartening quest, and perhaps they could now advance towards the end goal of ending the Dark Lord forever.</p><p>She and Harry had embraced in happiness.</p><p>That one small act had been the tipping point for their friend.</p><p>Boiling over at long last, Ron had erupted in a jealous tirade that had encompassed everything from loss of family to her. Hermione had instinctively known even then that it had been the horcrux panicking at the knowledge they'd gained and spurring Ron on towards violence to stop their intended plans for it, but all the same, the hurt could not be rationalized away. "Ron, stop!" she'd pleaded with him at one point, desperate for him to remove the locket and come back to himself, but he was like a bull seeing only red. Unforgivable words conceived from the darkest corners of his heart and mind were belched forth with a sharp tongue that slashed at both her and Harry, emotionally bleeding them.</p><p>Long minutes later, when he'd finally finished shouting down the roof, Ron had done enough damage to break hearts and ruin friendships. To make matters worse, he'd then tossed the locket at them and left without a backward glance.</p><p>He'd abandoned them.</p><p>Harry had been utterly devastated, and Hermione...</p><p>That day, Ron had been lost to her, and in truth, she was torn as to whether or not she'd ever want him back.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Four months without word or even a hint of Ron's final fate, of searching for that familiar shock of bright red hair peeking through a forest canopy or between buildings whenever she and Harry had dared set up camp on the tops of Muggle buildings or under bridges.</p><p>Four months of listening to the wireless at her best friend's side while reading Beedle Bard's tales and trying to solve Voldemort's riddle of the horcruxes. During those long weeks, Hermione had silently prayed not to hear her friend's name called out by Lee Jordan as being among the list of the missing and the confirmed dead.</p><p>When she'd closed her eyes at night, she was most often haunted by nightmarish visions of Ron dying, alone and afraid.</p><p>Despite her colossal disappointment in her ginger-haired friend, Hermione had felt his loss, like some sort of phantom limb syndrome. Ron had always been a part of her and Harry, a vital third wheel that tempered both her and her best friend's more serious natures and forced them to think beyond their Muggle roots, to embrace magical culture and make it their own. She'd mourned him with the same ferocity as she did anything in life—that is to say, with passion.</p><p>Then one morning, after a particularly horrifying dream involving him dying in a pool of blood and crying out her name, she'd awoken to find him at the edge of the camp's wards...and had finally exchanged her hot tears for a cold rage, one that settled in the space where her heart persistently clapped out its steady beat.</p><p>Apparently, Ron had found them with Dumbledore's gift, the Deluminator, using it to track their voices by some bizarre magic she didn't quite understand.</p><p>–And he hadn't been alone.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>It had been Harry's turn standing guard when the lightning-crack of Apparition echoed through the forest.</p><p>The sound woke Hermione from a sleep disturbed by terrifying visions that had left her with tracks of tears salting her cheeks. Surprised into instant alertness, she'd dropped to the floor on instinct and reached under her pillow for her wand. Her hand froze as she found the space empty, and a moment later, the reason why came to her: Harry's wand had been broken at Christmas and they hadn't replaced it yet, so he was borrowing hers in the interim.</p><p>With a silent curse in her head, Hermione slunk on silent feet low towards the tent flap and paused there to listen.</p><p>At first there were no sounds coming from outside the tent, but then a muffled voice barked something unintelligible about being let through their magical barrier. Carefully, Hermione peeked around the flap and looked out, two wandless spells she'd perfected over the past few months—one defensive, one offensive—on the tip of her tongue, ready and willing use.</p><p>Ron was on the other side of their wards…and he was half-carrying someone who had a leaden arm slung over Ron's burly shoulders and leaned heavily against him as if he were unconscious. There was blood all over the both of them.</p><p>Even from the distance, Hermione recognized that familiar cap of sugar white hair of the injured man, stained as it was with gore. She swore under her breath.</p><p>Near the boundary line, Harry raised her wand and the hopeful and happy look on his face told her all she needed to know about his intentions. "Harry, no!" she shouted, but by then, it was too late. Her friend had lowered the wards to let Ron in, not suspecting a possible ruse in the works. "Idiot," she seethed at him and ran over, preparing her first wandless spell for casting.</p><p>Ron carried his limp parcel across the boundary line, huffing and grimacing in pain.</p><p>"Close it behind me," he croaked and then collapsed to his knees.</p><p>Malfoy tumbled out of Ron's arms and fell limply to the forest floor, rolling from his side onto his back. He was unconscious. From the long, but thin wound that crossed his chest and another across his forehead that bled as excessively as all head wounds tended to do, Hermione thought it for the best.</p><p>"Harry, fix the wards, quickly," she instructed him as he stood in shock over what he was seeing. When he didn't react, Hermione snapped her fingers at him. "Harry! The wards. Now!"</p><p>"R-right," he stammered and got to work repairing the damage he'd done to their sanctuary.</p><p>They'd have to move tonight. This location was no longer secure, she thought as she turned to her red-headed friend and inspected him. He'd clearly been in a wand duel and was bleeding from several shallow Slashing hexes all over his torso and arms.</p><p>She knelt before Ron and pointed a finger, aimed like a Muggle gun, at his head. "What exact colour dress did I wear to the Yule Ball?"</p><p>Ron's eyes were glazed with pain and he blinked in confusion. "W-what?"</p><p>"The colour of my dress, the one you'd insulted so thoroughly that night," she reiterated with the familiar irritation at that memory creeping into her voice. She prepared to hit him with the Knock-Back jinx she'd wandlessly been practising for the past two months if he didn't get this one right. "I corrected you on the exact shade when you mentioned it. What did I tell you it was?"</p><p>"'Mione, for fuck's sake-"</p><p>She pressed her fingertip harder into his skin. "The shade," she growled, a final warning in her tone. "What was it?"</p><p>Ron seemed to grasp for the memory. "Fuck, I don't-" His eyes brightened with remembrance. "Periwinkle. I said it was blue, and you said 'It's periwinkle, Ron. Don't be dense.'"</p><p>He mocked her as he recited her words.</p><p>Well, that told her precisely what he thought of her, didn't it?</p><p>"<em>Stupefy,"</em> she cast instead, and because she hadn't a wand in hand at that moment and her wandless casting of the spell hadn't been perfected, the spell only hit Ron with enough strength to knock him backwards onto his arse into the snow and to daze him.</p><p>Standing back up, her knees snapped in the cold.</p><p>Harry appeared at her side, staring down at their friend. He didn't seem inclined to help Ron, however, she noticed.</p><p>"You didn't need to-" he began, but by then Hermione had dismissed Ron with a sniff and an upturned nose and turned to Malfoy…and she hit the ferrety git with a wandless stunner of light strength as well. His body twitched once, but otherwise, he didn't give any indication that he was faking being unconscious.</p><p>Harry's lips curled with a vindictive smile anyway.</p><p>"That, I didn't mind seeing," he admitted.</p><p>Hermione sighed as she stared down at her childhood bully, wondering what in Godric's name Ron thought he was doing rescuing Slytherin's fallen prince. What had Ron gotten up to since they'd parted ways four months ago?</p><p>Clearly no good.</p><p>"We're going to talk about what you did," she calmly told Harry and held her hand out for her wand.</p><p>Harry gave over the weapon without complaint. "Yeah, okay," he agreed, sounding resigned to being pecked to death in the verbal dress-down she was, even then, planning for him. "Probably should see to their wounds first, though."</p><p>Hermione huffed.</p><p>"You can carry Ron then," she told him, eyeing the wards once to make sure they were up to snuff.</p><p>"And Malfoy?" her friend asked, moving to stand over Ron and offer him a hand up.</p><p>With a swish of her wand, she had the Malfoy scion hovering in the air and following behind her as she headed back into the tent.</p><p>"We'll see," was all she promised her friend, leaving the possibilities open-ended.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Accommodations</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <hr/><p>It took up much of Hermione's Dittany supply to heal both Ron and Malfoy's wounds, and a Scourgify spell to clean their clothing.</p><p>The rips in their robes had required mending as well. Fortunately, that was a charm she well-knew from having repaired all of those torn-up hats she'd knitted for the Hogwarts elves.</p><p>As she sat in a chair at his side, darning Malfoy's shirt, she rechecked the ropes typing down her patient's ankles and wrists. It was a necessary precaution, she told herself, as scrutinizing chess pieces was Ron's forte, not correctly judging people. That lapse in judgment could cost them their lives, hence the extra precaution.</p><p>Besides, she wasn't about to take any chances, especially with a Slytherin. And she'd already been bitten by this particular snake once.</p><p>After being healed up and taking a potion out of their dwindling stock to clear his head, Ron had headed outside to talk to Harry about where he'd been for the last four months, how he'd found them, and why he'd decided Draco Malfoy was an appropriate risk to bring into their hidden camp. One look at Hermione's disapproving features had been enough for him to want to put space between them, and an explanation as to his whereabouts and motives was the perfect excuse for a get-away with Harry in tow.</p><p>Four months, she inwardly stewed. Where had he been?</p><p>"Knew you were into kink, Granger."</p><p>Malfoy's whisky-rough, exhausted voice jarred her out of her inner musings.</p><p>She looked up from the work she'd been doing to mend his shirt and met the tired, dull eyes of her patient staring back at her as he tugged upon the restraints tying his wrists down to the cot. His chapped lips struggled to turn up at the corners, and he seemed as resigned as she was to be facing off with her again after all this time.</p><p>Just meeting that grey gaze once more had butterflies going off in her belly, and it took her a few seconds to collect her thoughts and to phrase the right question, even if it wasn't what she really wanted to ask him.</p><p>"How do you feel?"</p><p>He sighed.</p><p>"Like I've been cut into ribbons…and like I'm not to be trusted."</p><p>He jiggled the bindings that had a fierce hold upon him to make his point.</p><p>"Why should you be trusted?" she automatically fired back, a bit annoyed with his presumption.</p><p>What they'd done that one time had, as she'd said in the aftermath, merely the result of stress and hormones on both their parts. They hadn't been friends then, she hadn't trusted him beyond an orgasm, and nothing had changed, really.</p><p>He'd killed Dumbledore.</p><p>Rather than argue the matter with her, Malfoy simply sighed again and stared up at the billowing canopy of the tent far above their heads. Outside, the wind was picking up, howling through the trees and pushing them around until they groaned and cracked, just as her knees had done earlier.</p><p>A long time passed in silence as they waited each other out.</p><p>"Did you hex me?" he finally asked, frowning. "I can feel the residual sting in my side."</p><p>Hermione sniffed and returned to sewing up his shirt the old-fashioned way. She tugged at the thread, pulling it through the fabric with a hard yank.</p><p>"Consider yourself lucky that's all you feel."</p><p>He chuffed a laugh at that, knowing from personal experience her penchant for violence when feeling particularly self-righteous, and then winced at the pain the action caused.</p><p>Alright, perhaps it had been a bit sadistic for her not to have given him any numbing potions at the same time as she'd healed his wounds, but Hermione resolved she wouldn't feel any guilt over it. Let him ache; it was the least he deserved.</p><p>"I suppose you're right," he agreed. "I should be dead ten times over by now."</p><p>"Yes, you should," she matter-of-factly told him, not pulling her punches. "It seems the qualities you Slytherins best possess are self-interest and survival, though. Lucky you."</p><p>Knotting the thread, Hermione used her wand to slice it off and then raised Malfoy's shirt to inspect the work. The darning was good enough, she figured, and set it aside as she stood up and prepared to go make supper, since the boys still weren't back from their one-on-one.</p><p>"Wait, where're you going?" her captive asked, looking a bit distressed at her leaving him tied up and defenseless. "You're not seriously going to keep me tied up for the duration of the war, are you?"</p><p>Well, she couldn't say the thought hadn't crossed her mind…</p><p>"Relax, Malfoy. I'm going to fix us all something to eat," she replied instead and enchanted her sewing kit back into her beaded bag with a wave of her hand. "For all his bravado, you'll find Harry won't go near a stove. He burns water. As for Ron, being a compulsive eater entertains the limits of his culinary talent. Someone has to keep us from starving."</p><p>In fact, the more she thought about it, the more it seemed likely that the cooking would be up to her henceforth. That suited her fine, however. She'd just require Ron to take up her sentry duty instead. He'd work for his dinner.</p><p>Before she could escape the area sectioned off as the sleeping quarters, Malfoy decided to hit her with a parting shot. Even injured the ferret wouldn't give her the last word on any matter, it seemed.</p><p>"You're forgetting the third 'S' in your list of what we Slytherins are good at, Granger: seduction. You remember that one, don't you?"</p><p>Cheeks burning at the memories his words conjured, she hurried away as his laughter followed after her.</p><p>Git.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>~.~.~</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>By that night, Malfoy was up and walking around the tent at Harry and Ron's insistence.</p><p>To say Hermione hadn't been thrilled with the compromise she'd been forced to make there was an understatement, as she'd much preferred Malfoy strapped down and helpless, well aware of the danger he represented. However, she'd finally given in to Ron's badgering and Harry's, "Hermione, be rational" requests only on the condition that Malfoy stayed in a set of magical chains to limit his movement, just in case. She still didn't trust him, no matter Ron's vouching for him…and she'd made it clear that she didn't trust Ron that much either, so he should consider himself lucky she was even considering his request.</p><p>The boys both agreed to her stipulation, despite Malfoy's growling protests in the background.</p><p>"Is this really necessary?" he'd demanded as she magically constructed a set of wrist and ankle cuffs similar to Muggle prisoner restraints, as she'd once seen on television.</p><p>"Yes, it is."</p><p>When she offered no explanation, Malfoy glared at her. "You're serious."</p><p>"Absolutely," she told him and clapped the cold iron around both of his wrists and his ankles, then testing them to assure they were locked up tight before releasing him from the Incarceration spell.</p><p>"Granger, for fuck's sake-"</p><p>She turned away before he could get going on a rant meant to wear her down and went instead to check on the pasta she was cooking and assuring the cranberry-applesauce bread was rising in the miniature makeshift stove she'd set-up in the dining area of the tent. Finding things coming along well, she tested the Pomodoro sauce next, and added a pinch of dried oregano, basil, and garlic to it for flavour.</p><p>When everything was ready, she called out to let the others know, and then set the table. As they filed in, Malfoy's chains clanking loudly in the insulated space as he shuffled up to the table, she filled their glasses with an <em>Aguamenti</em> charm and served the food in equal portions.</p><p>"This is great, Hermione, really top-shelf," Harry offered, as he set his napkin in his lap and looked at the others in the room. "You've outdone yourself!"</p><p>Ron was quick to sing her praises after catching Harry's obvious hint, kissing up in the hopes of winning her forgiveness faster. Malfoy merely nodded and mumbled a 'thank you', but the glare he tossed her throughout dinner as he was forced to bend his body closer to the table to bring the fork to his mouth told Hermione he wasn't as grateful as he made out.</p><p>Behind her face, Hermione received a bit of perverse delight over his discomfort, she had to admit. <em>Now who's laughing, </em>she thought as she tossed the ferret a smug smile across the table.</p><p>From the sour expression on his face, it was clear Malfoy understood her secret glee and wasn't amused.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Mistakes</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <hr/><p>Hermione outright asked Harry at the supper table that night for his opinion as to whether or not they'd need to move their tent right away, casting a dark look in Ron and Malfoy's direction.</p><p>The implication was clear: if the idiot duo had jeopardized their encampment's secrecy as a result of their fooling about, she would have to seriously reconsider her stance against torture.</p><p>When Harry decided that they were, most likely, safe for the moment, she agreed. Assigning the boys clean-up duty—she'd agreed to cook, after all, not to be their maid—she announced she was turning in for the night and quickly hurried towards her section of the tent where she'd stationed her cot. Sleep was hard to come by, however, especially knowing Malfoy was anywhere nearby.</p><p>She didn't trust him, not after all he'd done.</p><p>If she was being honest, she didn't trust herself, either. Just being near Slytherin's fallen Prince made Hermione's feelings raw and her body betray her.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>.~.</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>Back before he'd destroyed any chance at redemption in Hermione's eyes, Draco Malfoy had done his best to get her attention, snapping at her until she'd had no choice but to meet him head-on.</p><p>They'd snarled back and forth many a night in the library and in the corridors of the castle since first year, but there had been an undercurrent of sport to it—less offensive in the bite, almost flirtatious in the banter. He'd never stopped being vile, true, but occasionally, he could be funny as well…but only when no one else was present.</p><p>It was a result of all that private sparring that she'd noticed when things had changed.</p><p>Sixth year had seen Draco Malfoy turned inside-out. His maturing fitness had all but shriveled into pre-pubescent proportions by that Christmas, and he'd often looked disheveled, unfocussed, and unusually pale. Stress lines upon his face had aged him beyond his years. He'd stopped his wolfish nipping at her heels in both public and private. No longer was he the centre of attention, a loud-mouthed braggart and bully, but a wary and frightened ghost hovering at life's edges.</p><p>Harry had known why, had guessed the reason on the train into Hogwarts.</p><p>Hermione had done the same, but thought her best friend's fixation on Malfoy over the years had tilted him into the obsessive and knew no good could come of it, so she'd led him astray. And then she'd gone directly to Dumbledore with her suspicions.</p><p>The Headmaster had treated her with the same, cool patronizing attitude as she'd shown Harry.</p><p>Refusing to be condescended to, she'd taken matters into her own hands, following Malfoy around school, spying on him when he wasn't aware. That's how she'd discovered his secret project in the Room of Hidden Things, and how she'd pieced together his plans to link the Vanishing Cabinet in Hogwarts to its twin in Borgin and Burkes.</p><p>It had taken her a week to work out a plan, and then another to work up the courage to enact the scheme, and then an extra week brushing up on book knowledge about sexuality by 'borrowing' the stack of gossip magazines Lavender, her roommate, had enjoyed reading to ensure the best chance of her plot's success.</p><p>The night before their release for the Easter holiday, she'd made her move.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>.~.</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>He'd been up on the seventh floor again in the Room of Requirement, just as she'd expected, and she'd gained entrance from the door he'd accidentally, in his panic, had left unlocked behind him.</p><p>She'd made sure he'd heard her entrance and had slowly approached him. The lines she'd rehearsed in her mind a thousand times tumbled unconvincingly from her lips now that the moment had arrived…</p><p>"<em>Oh, Draco, I'm glad I found you! I need your help."</em></p><p>Naturally, he'd been wary.</p><p>"<em>You needing help, Granger, is about as likely as Potter agreeing to stop sniffing around me. What do you really want?"</em></p><p>It should have been obvious that he'd see past her dissembling, for Malfoy had never been a clod. In fact he'd always been, in her estimation, one of the sharpest individuals she'd encountered, and therefore somewhat dangerous. She'd been used to dealing with the likes of Ron and Harry, though, whom were relatively simplistic two-dimensional characters, and so had attempted a ploy tailor-made for them and not someone of a Slytherin's level of sophistication.</p><p>As her cover story had been so effortlessly blown by her opponent in a moment of perceptiveness, she'd decided instead to go the route of truth—or rather, an abbreviated version of it—instead.</p><p>"<em>Alright, let me put it another way: I want to help you."</em></p><p>Before he could open his mouth with some scathing remark about not needing a Mudblood's help or feigning ignorance of her implication that he was indeed in trouble, as she'd caught on to his devilry regarding the Vanishing Cabinet, she'd barreled forward with her argument.</p><p>In for a pence, in for a pound, or she'd always believed.</p><p>"<em>I'm positive that after your father's arrest, You-Know-Who has convinced you to do something reckless to further his plans, Draco…which is why you've changed so dramatically this year. I can also see you don't want to do it, but you feel trapped. It's there, in your eyes, if one looks deep enough."</em></p><p>She'd slowly inched closer to him as she'd talked, as one might when approaching a wounded animal, and he'd watched her with the same narrowed, calculating gaze that an injured predator might. It had made the flesh upon her arms rise with goose pimples.</p><p>"<em>You don't have to do it, you know. Whatever it is you're planning, Draco, you can stop it, right here and now."</em></p><p>His answering laugh had surprised her, for it had sounded a tad deranged to her ears, as if his sanity had remained tethered to his mind only by a mere wisp of a thread.</p><p>"<em>Have you been dipping into Slughorn's hooch, Granger? Or have Lovegood's delusions finally rubbed off? That's the most ridiculous conspiracy theory I've heard yet come out of your lot."</em></p><p>There had been, she recalled, such a forceful denial in his tone and words that, for a fraction of a second, Hermione had felt uncertain of her assessment of the situation, and had even wondered if she'd totally misjudged him.</p><p>"<em>Heh, maybe Umbridge had been right about you—all that useless studying has glutted your brain and made your Gryffindor imagination run wild."</em></p><p>Mentioning Dolores Umbridge had been his mistake, for there were few people in the world that could rile Hermione's anger as that woman had…as well as remind Hermione that she could trust her intuition when it came to people's intentions. She'd once called out Umbridge's plans for the school, and she'd been right then.</p><p>That was how Hermione had known she was right about Malfoy, too.</p><p>Well, that and the fact his insults were utterly flat and lacking their usual bite. It was as if he hadn't the heart to truly contradict her findings and misdirect her from them.</p><p>"<em>Stop it!" </em>she'd growled back at him, feeling the situation warranted a seriousness he refused to show.<em> "Your smart mouth can't talk its way out of it this time, Draco. I know about the Vanishing cabinet!"</em></p><p>Much like a snake rattling its tail in warning of an imminent strike, Malfoy made his displeasure known with a hiss and a menacing step towards her.</p><p>"<em>Fuck off, you nosy witch! This is harassment! I'll go to the Headmaster! You'll have your perfect Prefect badge revoked, Granger. I'll demand your expulsion! I'm warning you–"</em></p><p>"<em>Fine, let's go see the Headmaster then, Malfoy! Right now, in fact," </em>she'd challenged him, and as she'd suspected, he'd backed down from that threat, knowing it would bring into question why he was in the Come-And-Go Room at all.<em> "Maybe he'll know a way to save you from your fool self, because it's clear you have a suicidal wish!"</em></p><p>"<em>I am not suicidal! And don't act as if you care about me anyway–"</em></p><p>"<em>I do care, you idiot! I've always cared!"</em></p><p>That one awkward declaration had been a bomb going off between them.</p><p>In the snap of time immediately succeeding it, the fight had stalled out, leaving them both stupefied in its wake.</p><p>Her unintended revelation had changed everything.</p>
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<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Confrontations</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <hr/><p>Hermione turned over in her cot and stared at the thick canvas separating her sleeping area from where Malfoy currently slept on.</p><p>Was he asleep yet?</p><p>Most likely…completely oblivious to her inner torment right then. Damn him.</p><p>She flipped onto her other side and stared resolutely at the wall that separated her from Harry and Ron's sleeping areas. There were light snores coming from them both as they happily dreamed away the last four months of sins.</p><p>Damn them, too.</p><p>She sat up, got out of the cot, and donned a dressing gown pulled from the depths of her beaded bag. Tying the cinch around her middle, she headed out through the curtain that separated her 'bedroom' from the main part of the tent, uncaring as to the current state of her hair. She was going to cut it soon anyway, as short as she could stand it to be, just to be rid of the weight and frequent inconvenient care it required.</p><p>Stirring up the small stove they were using to heat their food, she used her wand to pour water into the tea kettle and set it atop the flame. She might as well enjoy a cuppa, since sleep was eluding her tonight.</p><p>As she waited for the water to boil, she closed her eyes and listened, stretching out her magical aura to feel the night. The wind outside had calmed. An occasional stream of air blew down from the north, puffing the tent, a tickle of breath that was hardly enough to lift canvas. Still, it was bitterly cold, the temperature making the trees brittle and cracking them open, killing them slowly. It was still the heart of winter, so the rustle of a nocturnal bird hooting on occasion was the only sign that creatures actively roamed the forest.</p><p>It was dangerous that no one was on guard duty tonight. She should drink her tea quickly and get dressed to walk the perimeter. Even though the wards hummed with strength around their encampment and would hold to allow for enough time for escape, they shouldn't drop their guard like this. It was incautious.</p><p>Then, she <em>had</em> made a habit her whole life of engaging in imprudent behaviour, hadn't she? She supposed that's why the Sorting Hat had finally decided upon Gryffindor for her, finding such foolhardiness equivalent to some form of bravery.</p><p>As the kettle whistled, she removed it quickly from the stove and made herself the tea, which she then blew upon to cool down before sipping it as quickly as she dared.</p><p>Sitting at the small table in the centre of the tent, she considered their 'prisoner' and the past once more, her mind shifting back towards subjects better left un-prodded… She should have left the Room of Requirement in those awkward moments following her confession that afternoon. Running for the exit would have been the smarter thing to do, even if it would have been considered cowardice.</p><p>She hadn't, though, and staying in place had simply made her curious.</p><p>Adventurous.</p><p>Perhaps that's <em>really</em> why she'd been sorted Gryffindor—for her reckless stupidity. It was a catchy pandemic in their House, after all.</p><p>As she traced the edge of her cup with one ragged fingernail, she considered the sex she and Malfoy had indulged that afternoon… Ever the pragmatic one of her friends, Hermione had always believed her first time would be just another opportunity for research, an undertaking to be experienced and evaluated for future consideration. By the start of sixth year, she'd already devoured loads of source material on the subject, and had come to the determination that, for a woman, losing one's virginity was usually disappointing and painful and nothing more than a stepping stone to full maturity.</p><p>Nothing about sex with Draco Malfoy had been that sensible.</p><p>Or cold.</p><p>Instead, it had been a revelation that not all young men thought only of their own pleasure. Ginny had been wrong about that bit, and Lavender, too, it seemed. Hermione had walked away from her first exploration into adulthood sore from the pounding she'd received, but exhaustedly sated, humming with an arousing ache between her thighs for days later. Emotionally, however, she'd been knotted up into tangles so twisted and confusing that she was still haunted by the memory of her first lover's touch.</p><p>"<em>It's my first time, too."</em></p><p>Or so he'd claimed.</p><p>There was a part of her that believed him, and yet he'd been well-practiced in foreplay, from her recollection. That much had been obvious.</p><p>"<em>Don't regret that."</em></p><p>How could she not? He'd taken his gratification of her even as he'd schemed to destroy Dumbledore and to bring the Order to its knees. And she'd been the fool to believe he could be converted. A world of regret lay at her feet for not recognizing sooner that Malfoy had never wanted saving. Like any Slytherin, he'd merely desired opportunities…which she'd given him by not turning in him and his plans for the Vanishing Cabinet.</p><p>That wasn't a mistake she would repeat, however. Tomorrow morning, they were moving camp, and Malfoy wasn't coming with them. Ron would either agree or she would take Harry and everything she could pack in her beaded bag, and leave the two of them behind. As the daughter of two well-traveled Muggles, she knew from touring about many of the empty subway tunnels and abandoned military underground fortifications peppering the British countryside that there were plenty of rabbit holes to hide within. Magical folk either had no knowledge of or avoided such places. She'd moved her and Harry to a place no wizard would consider giving a look.</p><p>The rattling of chains behind her alerted her that she was no longer alone.</p><p>Before she could utter a rebuke to chase him off, Draco took the seat next to her, falling into it with a <em>'thunk'</em> and a jangling of metal. "Listen, Granger, I'll save you the trouble of skinning Weasley," he announced, leaping right into the lion's den to head her off at the pass and keep her off-kilter. It was how he'd always handled her, assuring she could never be on even footing when facing off with him. "It's my fault he brought me along. I demanded it as my price for saving him from the Snatchers."</p><p>Well, his lure was certainly a shiny one, wasn't it? A heroic deed accomplished by a villain seeking redemption. It was just the kind of fantasy an idealistic girl with lingering feelings might want to hear.</p><p>-Except Draco Malfoy had never done a decent thing in his life, and they both bloody knew it.</p><p>"Why would you do that?" she challenged him. "You hate Ron, remember? He's a 'blood traitor'. Isn't that what your side calls the Weasleys?"</p><p>He was silent for a bit, considering his answer carefully.</p><p>"I hated you once, too. You…changed me."</p><p>Her cynicism raised its ugly head at that attempt at a backhanded compliment. "One heated round of sex and look, you're suddenly a man reborn into good graces. Colour me impressed."</p><p>"Don't!"</p><p>She could practically hear his back teeth gritting at her mockery. "Don't what?" she asked, all feigned innocence. If he could pretend, well then, so could she.</p><p>"Speak of what we did as if it was nothing!" He leaned forward, reached out to gently finger a length of her hair that had separated from the rest, hanging down the side of her arm. "You know it wasn't."</p><p>She glanced down at the empty cup of tea in her hands. No leaves at the bottom as she'd had to go with bagged when considering the long-term storage of tea and freshness values. She wondered if that would mean anything to old Trelawney…if she was even still alive.</p><p>Not that Hermione put much stock in Tessomancy, anyway.</p><p>"Wasn't it?" she demanded. "Clearly my throwing myself at you did nothing to sway you. You still fixed the Vanishing cabinet. You still let the Death Eaters into Hogwarts. You helped get Dumbledore killed. Congratulations on starting the war, by the way."</p><p>His hand withdrew as if burned and he sat back again.</p><p>"I'm…sorry."</p><p>She shrugged.</p><p>"It's a little too late for that, don't you think?"</p><p>He swore under his breath.</p><p>"No, you said–" He licked his bottom lip, and her eyes tracked the movement. "That afternoon when we… You begged me to turn aside my plans, and I did. It took a bit longer than I'd expected, but… You said if I needed you, you'd help, Granger. Well, I'm here now–"</p><p>"I take it all back," she whispered and turned back to the empty teacup in her hand, her heart cracking open once more at the memory of his betrayal, despite all her empty promises that she wouldn't let him in ever again. "It was a mistake to believe in you."</p><p>Magic suddenly filled the air and she turned, surprised, to find his manacles falling to the ground. Somehow, wandless, he'd gotten around her wards on the metal and unlocked them! Sneaky little snake probably figured out hours ago how to break out, and had just been biding his time.</p><p>"Don't," he pleaded with her, reaching for her. "Don't give up on me like that!"</p><p>She jumped up and away from him, her teacup crashing to the tent floor and splintering into an array of sharp-edged pieces between them. Her wand was up an instant later and pointed at his heart, a spell upon her lips to put him down, if necessary.</p><p>Slowly, he stood, towering over her as he had even as a child of eleven to her twelve. He'd always been taller.</p><p>"Please don't," he said in a soft, trembling voice, "not when I've gone this far." A shaky hand brushed the long fringe from his eyes and he gave a small, smothered laugh that sounded legitimately tormented. "I've killed for you."</p><p>"<em>What?"</em></p>
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<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Change</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <hr/><p>The bottom had fallen out of Hermione's stomach.</p><p>"Are you saying you <em>were</em> the one to kill Dumbledore that night on the Astronomy Tower?"</p><p>Could Harry have made such a glaring mistake? He'd said Draco had been lowering his wand, and that Snape had done the actual deed…</p><p>Her 'prisoner' seemed agitated by the accusation, which did much to loosen the knot in the centre of her chest. "You know I didn't!" he insisted with a growl of frustration. "Snape did. Weasley said Potter witnessed the entire event while hiding under an Invisibility Cloak. He told you both that much!"</p><p>Yes, he had, and now she had ground-zero confirmation of that fact. Her relief, however, was eclipsed by a return of her irritation in Ron. That her 'friend' had divulged such an important secret as the cloak to the enemy ! What had that clodhead been thinking?</p><p>"Then who <em>did</em> you kill?" she demanded, wanting answers and bloody tired of having to hunt them down.</p><p>"The Head Snatcher, Scabior," he said, regaining a bit of his composure. He still fiddled with the hem of his shirt with a nervous hand, though; it was on loan, one of Ron's from the stash Harry had insisted they keep in case he came back. "He had Weasley and was planning to sell him at the slave market once it opened up in a few months."</p><p>"Slave market? <em>Sell him?"</em></p><p>Who in the world would want to buy another person, much less Ron?</p><p>"That's preposterous," she countered with a huff. "Slavery went out with the Dark Ages!"</p><p>Malfoy just stared at her, one dark brown eyebrow raised at such a ridiculous claim.</p><p>"Tell that to the Dark Lord."</p><p>She opened her mouth to argue that what he was contending was ludicrous, for any wise leader of an uprising would know that enslavement of a population was foolhardy before one's power had even been consolidated and assured, but then she closed it again, astounded that he seemed serious and confident of his claim.</p><p>Was Voldemort truly that arrogant? Did he actually believe to his bones that he would win this war?</p><p>Why? What would dare give him such confidence?</p><p>From everything she'd gathered through Harry and her frequent talks with Sirius via owl message over the year he'd been in hiding, she'd known Tom Riddle Jr. had always been plagued with the need to prove himself above his half-Muggle heritage, and more than anything, he'd been afraid of dying before cementing a place for himself in the wizarding Hall of Fame. That's why, as a lad, he'd been overly-ambitious in his pursuit of knowledge…and cautious and clever in his handling of people, utilizing his good looks and natural charm to slither his way into people's confidences, as he had with Professor Slughorn. Later in life, he'd even honed his charisma to make zealots of some of his followers.</p><p>Yet, Riddle had always seemed to her to be more calculating in his quest for both academic and social glory. True, he'd become increasingly desperate over the last few years, since Harry had come of age for a Hogwarts education, and the man had engaged in some ill-advised behavior to achieve his goals, like murdering unicorns and drinking their blood. However, his setting Barty Crouch Jr. upon Alastor Moody to take his place, and then tasking the man to spend an entire year winning Harry's trust so, at just the right moment, he'd take the offer of the trick tournament cup and wind up in the graveyard at Little Hangleton…that seemed a scheme worthy of a careful and precise Slytherin.</p><p>Engaging in the chattel trade of flesh now, though, before he'd even defeated the one threat destined by a magical prophecy to defeat him was extremely imprudent. So why risk it?</p><p>"That's madness," she argued. "Doesn't he know he's ensuring an entire spy network will be set up inside the homes of his own soldiers by creating slaves of rebels? They'll be able to strike at him and his followers close up and personal when the time's right. It's inviting the snake into the lion's den."</p><p>"Not if he defangs the snakes and milks them of their poison in advance," Malfoy countered with a shrug that was too stiff to be considered 'casual', as if the topic disturbed him enough that the snake needed to pull back into his hole again and hide out for the next hundred years. "He's done it successfully at least once that I know of."</p><p>Hermione read between the lines, feeling a bit of creeping anxiety. "You're talking about some sort of magical dampening spell, aren't you?" Had Riddle's followers discovered a way to use wards to contain a person's core magic somehow?</p><p>A firm shake of Malfoy's head confirmed the situation was worse than even she'd guessed.</p><p>"He's making house-elves out of them."</p><p>In the ensuing silence that followed, Hermione thought her rival might as well have dropped an atom bomb into the centre of the tent for all the air that his comment had just sucked out of the room. Dumb and mute for the moment, she could only gape at her first and only lover, unsure as to how to respond.</p><p>In truth, she could count on one hand the number of times she'd actually been surprised by an unexpected statement out of someone's mouth. <em>"You're a witch,"</em> had not been one of them, as she'd worked that out on her own by the age of six. Neither had she been shocked by, <em>"There are others out in the world just like you,"</em> as that had merely been an issue of logical deduction, given the sheer population of humans on the planet. <em>"You'll need a wand and a cauldron,"</em> hadn't fazed her either, although being told <em>"No one wants an old worn-out half-Kneazle on his last legs,"</em> had come close to making her cry.</p><p>Admittedly, Malfoy's confession of having been a virgin the one and only time they'd had sex had certainly never been something she'd anticipated, and calling her a <em>"Mudblood" </em>had definitely left her speechless and enraged once she'd discovered its meaning. Yet, although her rival had always had a way of knocking the wind from her sails, <em>"He's making house-elves out of them," </em>had left her singularly breathless.</p><p>It took a moment more for the shock to wear off before her brain wound back up and began pondering such a bizarre, frightful accusation.</p><p>Being something of an expert on house-elf servitude in the wizarding world, thanks to her S.P.E.W. campaign, the contention that Voldemort had developed a plan to turn humans into the next wave of oppressed servants was disconcerting, to say the least. The archaic laws already on-book attempting to justify the barbaric and appalling enslavement of the elves had, on more than one occasion, given Hermione serious pause to reconsider her alliance with it. More than once she'd come close to snapping her wand and walking away from the madness. Only the vision of Dobby or Winky's faces appearing before her eyes and the determination to set their species free had stayed her hand.</p><p>Subjugating humans?</p><p>That crossed a final line in her sandbox, and this…this <em>could not</em> stand!</p><p>In effect, a house-elf didn't just serve the purpose of cleaning the china and dusting the sills; its magic was literally merged with that of the family that owned it, bolstering the wards on their familial homes through the use of blood magic and fidelity charms. By tying their life energy to a particular parcel of land, elves were effectively collared and leashed by the wealthy humans who controlled them…people who considered elves little more than a pair of shoes to be used and abused until worn out. Consequently, elves could neither hurt their owners, nor leave their servitude unless they were freed or sold off by, effectively severing their tie to the owner's home.</p><p>They were slaves.</p><p>The issue went deeper than that, however. House-elf magic was an ancient and powerful type of talent that humans could not replicate. In fact, Hermione suspected their species-specific 'gifts' to be even greater than that of any other class of magical being. By her guess, the elves were mini powerhouses, who could cross any magical wards, participate in blood magic rituals, and it was rumoured even dabble in time magic—a trick utilized primarily to ensure a roast in the oven did not burn, or so she'd gathered from Winky, in between the little elf's moments of sobriety. It was for this reason that, Hermione suspected, the wizards had imprisoned the elves from the start: to own that mysterious and potent power and turn it to their use warding and tending to their homes, spying on their rivals, and poisoning their enemies. All the while, they'd also schemed and manipulated behind closed doors to instill a cultish desire within the elves to serve others first, ensuring the desire for their freedom became an unthinkable and disloyal concept.</p><p>The house-elves were now <em>willing </em>slaves, suffering a massive case of Stockholm syndrome, to the point where they engaged in masochistic punishments should they even believe they'd failed their masters. Now that dynamic was in jeopardy of evolving and in the worst way possible.</p><p>"Good Lord," she said as her brain spun out with the darkest possibilities. The room was suddenly far too hot for her liking. "The pure-bloods are forcibly binding witches and wizards to their familial homes like they do to the house-elves? They'll never be free, conscripted into bondage the rest of their lives…and their children born into it as well!"</p><p>A single nod from Malfoy was all it took to shift her entire understanding of this war.</p><p>It seemed Riddle was far more ambitious and clever than Hermione had given him credit. He wasn't just selling the victim's magic; he was selling their human flesh, too, which had a far greater value to human owners, if only for the sadistic fantasies they could satisfy upon those unwilling souls.</p><p>Sex and servant trafficking—two for the price of one.</p><p>"There have only been a few human slaves that survived the transfer of their magic to their new masters," Malfoy explained. "One of them was in our class at school. Kevin Entwhistle."</p><p>"Hufflepuff," she said, envisioning a boy with kind eyes and a crooked row of teeth he tried to hide behind a closed smile. "I remember him. We had Arithmancy together in third year."</p><p>"He was the first to make it through the transfer, but they 'celebrated' a bit too hard with him. He…he's dead now."</p><p>Hermione's heart sunk into the floor.</p><p>"Oh."</p><p>There didn't seem to be much she could say to that without breaking down into tears, something she couldn't afford right then. There were answers to be had and she was determined to get them, to find out just how much danger Ron had put her and Harry into by bringing Malfoy into their camp, and to discover more about this mysterious ritual that killed gentle Kevin, a merry fool and a fellow Muggle-born.</p><p>Malfoy didn't seem to want to discuss the former, but he was certainly forthcoming with the latter.</p><p>"The idea is still in the experimental stage," he continued, his gaze having dropped to the table top again, as if it was a safe place to look to avoid the judgment in her eyes. "Humans don't take well to the co-opting of their magic."</p><p>"Who's in charge of the project?" Hermione asked, her mind now stirring the pot on the 'how' portion of that puzzle. If she could just determine that much, she might be able to figure out a way to get a message to the Order to target that person, to stop their work before it was too late…</p><p>Malfoy took a deep breath before dropping his second bomb of the night.</p><p>"My aunt, Bellatrix Lestrange."</p><p>Again, silence dominated the tent, cut only occasionally by a long, drawn-out snore from one of the boys in the other room.</p><p>"Well, hell," she said as a fissure of fear crawled down her spine. "That's-"</p><p>What could she say? Alarming? Terrifying?</p><p>"Nightmarish," Malfoy supplied.</p><p>Yes, that about covered it.</p><p>"We need to tell the others," she said, mind already made-up on the matter.</p><p>They were in over their heads, and now the enemy was developing a new weapon that could, potentially, change the entire outcome of the war, regardless of the outcome of the Horcrux hunt. Because once house-elf-style blood oaths were made and those slaves bound to a Voldemort loyalist, there would be no way short of death of one or both parties to cut those ties.</p><p>The hunt for the pieces of Tom Riddle's soul had to wait, and they needed to come out of hiding to find Lupin and the other Weasleys. The rebellion had to be warned.</p><p>"Weasley and Potter already know-"</p><p>"Not them," she interrupted with a quick wave of her wand to clean up the mess on the floor and another to repair her favourite tea cup. Then, she began packing things up with a string of charms means to shrink down and prepare them to de-camp. "The others."</p><p>"What others?" Malfoy demanded, grabbing her arm and forcing her to stop to answer him. "Your little rebels? They're scattered, running like rabbits, Granger. Everyone knows."</p><p>Yanking her arm from his grasp, she bit her tongue to stop from laying into him with a scathing lecture about irresponsibility and what it had cost him to break her trust—specifically, her. Once upon a time she'd fallen into Malfoy's arms, believing she could save him. In so doing, she'd made a deeply mysterious and emotional connection where she'd least expected one to exist…not to mention a feverishly sinful physical attraction that still haunted her dreams.</p><p>That had been a year and a lifetime ago, though. Now, she was just angry with him for tricking her so spectacularly, and at herself for allowing it.</p><p>"You may not believe in the Order of the Phoenix, Malfoy, but I do," she told him with a sharp tongue and giving him her back as she returned to the task of packing up the tent. "The first Order didn't fail us, and I know this second one won't either. We're stronger united anyway."</p><p>He didn't say anything for the longest time. When she finally did turn to determine if he was still there or not, she saw he'd gone to rouse the boys from their sleep. The two shot identically grumpy, exhausted gazes her way.</p><p>Good, let them tumble in and try to argue their way through this one.</p><p>She could certainly use a fight right then.</p>
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<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Choices</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <hr/><p>It was more difficult to find the Second Order of the Phoenix than Hermione had anticipated.</p><p>All day, she and her wizard companions had hopped around like frightened rabbits from one previously designated safe house to another, seeking a friendly face while keeping their faces covered and their heads down. Following the disappointing and, by now, familiar pattern to their history of daring quests, however, they'd been met with only formidable obstacles rather than aid.</p><p>All of their previously known shelters had been abandoned.</p><p>By eight o'clock that night, there were only three options left: Bill and Fleur's seaside cottage in Cornwall to the southwest of them, the Tonks' residence in southeast Devon's forest, and Hagrid's old familial home atop a mountain in the Scottish Highlands, where his father had settled to avoid any issues regarding his marriage to Fridwulfa, a giantess.</p><p>Shell Cottage was less than a hundred miles from their current jump, and was the obvious place for a first attempt.</p><p>But first, they all needed sleep.</p><p>Exhausted from using up so much of their magical reserves by Side-Along Apparating each other for hours, the small group unanimously agreed to set down camp for the night. They settled in Samson's Bay along the coast, in an old cave once used by smugglers. The location was so secure, that with their additional warding, the four were able to bed down without concerns of setting a midnight-to-dawn watch.</p><p>That didn't prevent Hermione from remaining awake and holding a security vigil, despite her fatigue. Malfoy remained unchained, at both Harry and Ron's insistence—a decision which she strenuously disagreed, and so it was up to her to ensure he didn't betray them again.</p><p>If anyone knew the extent of his slipperiness, it was her; in the past, on two separate occasions, she'd held her hand out to her Slytherin rival and both times, he'd bitten her hard enough to leave permanent scars.</p><p>She wasn't making that same mistake a third time.</p><p>
  <strong>~.~</strong>
</p><p>Shell Cottage was a typical dune-styled house: a cosy, but utterly enchanting structure built entirely out of salvaged driftwood, melted bottle glass, and wind-and-sand weathered stone. In this particular case, however, the roof was shingled by the giant cast-off shells of various magical species of sea clam and sea snails.</p><p>Inside, it dazzled with pearly white and oily blue nacre counter tops and inset shelving, which were offset by bright white calcium carbonate and slaked lime painted walls. A brick oven made of light grey pumice stone from an old, underwater dormant volcano off the coast had been magically brought in and set into the house's structure to dominate the kitchen. The furniture was a rustic beach style, and according to Bill Weasley, the dining table had been a giant piece of the Bridge deck from the <em>La Kateryne</em>, a Flemmish Hoy ship carrying Spanish textiles and iron that had wrecked off the coast in the late fifteenth century.</p><p>It was a warm, cheerful, and homey residence, as Fleur had added light blue linen curtains to every window, a gently tinkling chime to the front porch, and picked fresh flowers daily from her small greenhouse out back to decorate the table vases.</p><p>Compared to how they'd been tent-living and can-rationing for the last five months, the place was Heaven incarnate.</p><p>Especially the beds.</p><p>And the fresh-baked bread.</p><p>The four weary travelers happily cashed in on Bill and Fleur's hospitality after deeming it safe and secure, and Ron was thrilled to have found his brother at long last.</p><p>"We had to flee after the wedding, the same as everyone else," Bill explained to them as the ragtag fugitives swallowed the food Fleur put in front of them with an exuberant 'thank you'. "We escaped to Marseille via a pre-arranged portkey. It was supposed to be for our honeymoon. Fleur's family has a cottage there they let out to wizarding travelers, so we holed up there until we got the all-clear to come home from Dad."</p><p>"Why'd you bother?" Ron asked around a mouthful of spicy beans and eggs. "Should'a stayed in France." Quickly realising his faux pas, he attempted a fast backtrack. "I-I-I mean, it would have been safer, for you both."</p><p>Fleur patted her rounded, high belly, swollen with child. "<em>Oui,</em> for zee three o' us." She came over and ruffled Ron's hair with sisterly affection. "But not for you or 'arry or zee Order, <em>non?</em>"</p><p>"Where are they, the Order?" Hermione dared ask, interrupting the family reunion to get to the heart of the matter. "We have new information. It's vitally important Remus hears it."</p><p>The couple shared a silent glance, one that spoke volumes between them, but which left the others in the room uncomfortably aware that something critical had shifted on their side of the war room.</p><p>"Lupin…he's not leading the Order anymore," Bill explained. "He stepped aside in the middle of September. Went underground to spy within the werewolf ranks. From what I hear from Charlie, Tonks is pregnant and he's worried about protecting her and his unborn child. He's also looking to find out if children born of a werewolf become one, too. He's gone a bit…round the edge about it."</p><p>Harry was frowning, obviously recalling that conversation with Lupin at Grimmauld Place.</p><p>"Then, who's in charge?" Ron asked.</p><p>Bill's wolfish eyes, permanently altered now too, it seemed, turned their golden focus on his younger brother. "Charlie and Viktor Krum, who came in from Bulgaria and Romania with a force of their own…and Percy."</p><p>Ron's fork clattered to the plate with a sharp sound.</p><p>"Percy?" His lips curled with disbelief. "The fuck you say!"</p><p>Normally, Hermione would pinch him or have something to say about his profanity, but in this matter, she was in complete consensus.</p><p>"When did your brother shift his loyalty to the Order, exactly?" she asked. "The last we knew, he was still a Ministry lackey."</p><p>Bill settled back into his rickety chair and stirred his tea with a trembling hand. "After Scrimgoeur was murdered and Pius Thicknesse was installed by You-Know-Who to be the new Minister, Percy…came around," he explained. "He realised the moment the Muggle-born Registration Committee was created that the Ministry was finally broken. He came home, offered to help."</p><p>"And you all just trusted him?" Hermione asked the obvious.</p><p>"He eeze changed, 'ermione," Fleur told her with gentle rebuke. "He 'as worked 'ard to 'elp zee Order since."</p><p>Hermione had her doubts, however, and wasn't timid about voicing them.</p><p>"In my experience, people don't change."</p><p>She stared at Malfoy as she said it…and made sure everyone was well-aware in that one look of her feelings on the matter of both Percy <em>and</em> their tag-along.</p><p>Malfoy's face hardened, but he kept his mouth closed.</p><p>With that, she stood and took her plate to the sink, washing and drying it by hand as the others discussed the changes Charlie and Viktor and Percy had brought to the Order's tactics since being given the position of co-captains, so to speak. She kept an open ear out, listening, despite her appearance of disinterest.</p><p>"…was deemed a risk after Cho Chang was tossed into a slave camp in October," Bill was telling the others.</p><p>Harry became instantly alert at the mention of his first girlfriend.</p><p>"Cho's in trouble?" he asked.</p><p>"Yeah, magical blood status isn't the only thing Umbridge's new Committee targets," Bill explained. "She's been going after anyone who isn't 'racially pure', in her words, too, claiming magic from other areas of the world is contaminated and infectious. If your ancestors weren't native to the isles when the Ministry was first established, you're a target for banishment or imprisonment now."</p><p>"That's ridiculous!" Hermione piped in. "The U.K. is filled with immigrants who came here and have made this their home—for decades and even centuries, in some cases! Just who does that feeble-minded crone think she is to tell them they're not rightful citizens?"</p><p>The issue hit home as her mother was half-Greek and half-Turkish, an immigrant come to England in 1972, and who brought with her a three-thousand year old culture filled with vibrant traditions. Danae Önder arrived here by plane at eighteen to settle down in this land and to attend university…where she'd eventually met Richard Granger, Hermione's father. She'd worked hard to become a legal citizen, taking tests and waiting many long years for that opportunity, and she'd been proud of the accomplishment the day her letter had finally arrived in the post. She considered herself a subject of the Queen now. This was her home as much as it was Hermione's, who had been born here.</p><p>People like her mother would have been targeted by Umbridge's evil legislation had she been born a witch and still living in England. Thank Merlin neither was the case...even if the thought of the latter was enough to rip a hole in Hermione's heart.</p><p>"Besides, Dolores Umbridge is a half-blood with a Muggle mother who was from Poland and had escaped the genocide back during the Second World War," she stated. "That means <em>she's</em> automatically disqualified under her own rules, so she's in no position to be deciding such matters for others, the wretched hypocrite!"</p><p>Of course, Malfoy was the one to challenge her on her knowledge of such obscure facts about their enemy.</p><p>"She wouldn't have told you that," he pointed out the obvious. "So how do you know?"</p><p>Her eyes practically rolled out of her head at the doubt; as if she'd ever state something that wasn't a fact. "I had that horrid cow, Skeeter, look her up for me during fifth year. The witch owed me a favour for not exposing her unregistered Animagi status to the Ministry, and I wanted to know who we were up against." She held her hand up to stop him from talking when it was clear what his next question would be. "I know it's the truth because I hexed her favourite Quick-Quotes Quill to only write down facts, and all of her notebooks to only record them. Also, I told Rita that if she lied to me, I'd do worse to her than I did the last time we locked horns. She didn't dare cross me again."</p><p>"What'd you do to her?" Bill asked, golden eyes twinkling and scarred lips twitching with amusement.</p><p>Harry and Ron simultaneously replied, "You don't want to know."</p><p>"That bad?"</p><p>"Worse," the two said in unison again.</p><p>The eldest Weasley's expression became absolutely wolfish in approval.</p><p>Fleur gave an admiring laugh and a small round of applause.</p><p>Malfoy simply looked at her with new interest, one eyebrow raised in respect…and a silent request to be told that tale someday. Hermione glanced away, her cheeks heating. No way was she falling for his silent praise. That way led only to madness.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>La Kateryne was a real Flemmish Hoy ship carrying Spanish textiles and iron, and it had wrecked off the coast of Cornwall in the late fifteenth century. Fanfic can be both fun and instructive!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Scheming</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <hr/><p>"So, what is the Order doing to save Cho and shut down these slave camps?" Harry asked Bill and Fleur, his face losing its boyish charm and hardening with the familiar hero complex Hermione well knew by now. "Tell me you have a plan."</p><p>Bill and Fleur shared another one of those couples-only looks.</p><p>"Let me guess: the plan is to wait it out," Hermione interjected, seeing no call playing it coy now. "They think a rescue operation would be expected, and can't risk it until they're closer to the end game and Harry's ready."</p><p>"That's not acceptable-" Harry began, banging his fist on the table.</p><p>Ron reached out the stop him. "Hang on, mate. Let's think this through, yeah?"</p><p>Everyone gaped at him for expressing the need for restraint and deliberation—everyone except Malfoy, who remained silent but watchful, as if he was evaluating a star pupil.</p><p>How much influence on her best friend had Malfoy really had in the short time they'd been allies? It couldn't have been much since they'd only met at the slave camp not long before they'd Apparated in… Or had Ron been at the camp longer than she'd assumed? She'd still not heard his side of the tale of the missing four months. Perhaps he'd been incarcerated only days or weeks after leaving them and Malfoy had discovered him in the slave camp not too long after. Had he been visiting Ron for weeks, scheming a jail break with him? If so, had they managed to break anyone else out, too?</p><p>And why would Malfoy save Ron anyway? He'd not yet explained his reasoning to her.</p><p>"Who else has been caught?" Harry was asking Bill and Fleur.</p><p>"Those you might know?" Ron's brother shrugged. "The Patil twins. Some Hufflepuff named Su Li. I can't remember them all, honestly, but there was a Slytherin that caused quite the uproar. Name's Zabini," he said, turning to Malfoy, who sat up straight at the news of his friend's incarceration. Suddenly, he was all business, no longer a passive participant, she noted. His childhood friend's life had been risked, and that knowledge clearly enraged him, going by the curled fists and the black aura suddenly surrounding him. "Seems your Housemate was arrested and there was a big to-do about it, until his mother showed up from Italy and threw her weight around. She's being courted by You-Know-Who to financially and politically support his cause on the continent, so holding her son was a strike against."</p><p>His canines were sharper than normal people's, she noted, when he flashed them in a grin that nearly split his maimed face in two.</p><p>"Umbridge was nearly eviscerated for that mistake by the Dark Lord. I'm told her hair is snow white now."</p><p>"But we're not even close to being ready to confront Vo-…Tom," Harry said, stumbling over the name of his enemy, as if he was scared of the dark wizard somehow hearing it through their bizarre connection and magically locating him.</p><p>Hermione didn't blame him, really. He was still terrible at Occlumency, despite her working with him on the skill over the last four months since they'd been alone and in hiding. Although Mind magic was an easy branch for her to master, as she tended to confront all wizardry in logical categories anyway—each filed away in her head like a library card catalogue system—Harry's mind was undisciplined and impulsive. He was a talented and powerful wizard, but his strength came from a place of instinct and his results were, most often, simple luck. There was no consideration before he acted, which was why he'd been sorted Gryffindor, most likely.</p><p>It was for that matter that he would most likely never excel at Mind magic, or Magical Time theory for that matter, another of her secret interests.</p><p>For sure, someday he'd make a great Auror or Hit Wizard, or a teacher of Defence Against the Dark Arts, but he definitely wouldn't be Obliviating people well enough to help their cause any time soon. A Confunding charm would be, most likely, the extent of his talents in that arena, perhaps.</p><p>"…and Cho could be sold off to some sadistic Death Eater in the meantime!"</p><p>He seemed pained by the idea, and Hermione could sympathize. Although her best friend had come to fancy Ginny over the last year, it was clear there were still lingering feelings for his first love. If there was one thing she well understood, it was that it was difficult to get over your 'first' actual sexual experience.</p><p>"Harry's right, those camps have to go down," she said, retaking the seat to her best friend's right and gripping his hand to show solidarity, "but not <em>just</em> for the reason that concerns him. The camps are selling their captives to Death Eaters and sympathizers to their cause, and the binding spells they're using on the slaves are the same ones they use on house-elves."</p><p>Understanding curses and binding spells as a cursebreaker for Gringotts once upon a time, Bill exchanged another worried glance with Fleur.</p><p>From their expressions, it was clear neither Harry nor Ron understood the bigger implication, though.</p><p>"If they succeed," she explained for their benefit, "they'll permanently tie the magic of those slaves to their new owners. There won't be any way to sever the connection short of death for either the slave or its master."</p><p>"Then slay the Death Eater," Harry said succinctly and with a resolve in his green gaze that frightened her.</p><p>It seemed that threatening Cho with such a fate was something he would not tolerate and would kill to prevent. He'd finally found his line in the sand.</p><p>On the other side of him, Ron was nodding in agreement. "I'm good with that plan," he said.</p><p>She traded a look of her own with Malfoy then, noting he was observing her as closely as he had Ron earlier, as if he was wondering if his influence had been enough to convince her of this cause. It unnerved her, because it made her feel as if he'd spectacularly manipulated her, and not for any obvious reason she could discern.</p><p>What was he <em>really</em> after?</p><p>"That might not be an option," she argued.</p><p>"Why not?" Ron demanded. "Sounds simple enough to me."</p><p>Having thought it through over the last day, while jumping around, Hermione had come to the realization that she'd acted hastily in deciding to seek out the Order with this information, for they hadn't enough information, only what Malfoy had brought to the table.</p><p>…And now she wondered if, perhaps, that hadn't been his plan all along: to bring them out of hiding and into the open.</p><p>Had she fallen for his tricks again?</p><p>She swore under her breath.</p><p>"It's not that simple, Ron…because we don't know if murdering the slave owners won't automatically kill the slave. It's obviously a blood-bound ritual of some kind, but we don't know enough about this experimental spell. Would you want to accidentally kill Cho by killing her handler, Harry?"</p><p>"You're right, Hermione, the Order won't risk that," Bill said. "Not without good intel on this spell and what it's capable of doing."</p><p>On the other side of Ron, Malfoy finally made his move, uncoiling like a serpent and slithering into position for a well-timed strike. "It's good for your Order I've changed loyalties then," he said, looking imminently pleased with himself. His glittering gaze swung in her direction and she knew he was speaking directly to her this time. "I can get you the information on this spell that you need to break it…for a price."</p><p>Hermione's heart sank into the earth at her feet.</p><p>Merlin's curse, she'd known it would be a mistake to give the rotten snake a third chance to bite her hand! Yet like a senseless child, it seemed she hadn't learned her lessons from her agonizing past experiences tangling with Malfoy, because here they were, despite the distance she'd put between them and the suspicion she'd made clear she'd felt for him. Somehow, some way, she'd allowed him to get too close <em>again</em>.</p><p>The first time he'd been given her trust, her dignity that had taken a serious blow.</p><p>The second time, it had been her innocence lost.</p><p>What would the cost be this time?</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Disclosure</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <hr/><p>The sand was dense and soft, tripping Hermione several times before she'd reached the briny shoreline, where it was packed in tight by the relentless pounding of the waves.</p><p>Dodging the incoming tide, she stayed above the waterline and let the cold breeze temper the hot fire in her belly. Deep breaths helped, in and out, matching the pace of the gently roaring breakers with their white caps. The lull of the gull's cries overhead and the whisper of the wind through her hair did wonders for calming her racing blood.</p><p>Only Malfoy could get her this angry.</p><p>Well, him and Ron.</p><p>-Which was actually very telling, if one closely examined that comparison.</p><p>She put her hands over her eyes and stared into the darkness behind her eyelids, reliving the last few minutes...</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>"What sort of price?" Harry hesitantly asked, seeming astounded by Malfoy trying to haggle for intel that could save lives.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Why her best friend would be surprised by such a blatantly Slytherin move confused Hermione, as it was merely par for the course for the slimy git-snake in their midst. If there was one truism she and her friends had revealed over the past several years, it was that Malfoy never did anything unless it personally benefitted him. Aside from his 'rescue' of Ron—an event she was still sure had an ulterior motive behind it that had little to do with Ron, really—nothing else in their shared history proved otherwise.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Yeah, mate, what're you lookin' for here?" Ron asked.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Malfoy turned his triumphant gaze on her.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Granger," he said, and then amended that comment at the growl that escaped Bill's mouth. It was clear Ron's brother was suspicious of their guest's intentions, too. "I mean as a partner in crime to get me back inside Death Eater ranks. I'll need her help to pull off my plan."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Harry seemed troubled by such a ploy, though.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"What plan?"</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He seemed not the least bit concerned with the idea of Malfoy using her for the Order's gain.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Malfoy glanced at her, considering how to be reply. Knowing him as she did, as she had spent an obsessive amount of time watching him the year before and discerning his tells, Hermione took a guess at his plans. "If you're thinking of using me as prisoner bait, forget it," she warned him. "I will not be party to you returning home as the conquering hero and giving You-Know-Who access to my mind's secrets. The answer is 'no'."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Who said anything about handing you over to him?" he countered. "I can keep you safe."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>She scoffed.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"One, you couldn't keep yourself safe from that man," she reminded him, pointedly staring at his left arm where they both knew the Dark Mark lay, "and two, I don't trust you."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>His grin could have put an alligator's to shame, all toothy and full of guile.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"You did once."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Everything screeched to a halt.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Ron and Harry stared at her, suspicious. Bill and Fleur exchanged another of those silent couple looks that spoke volumes. Hermione simply stopped breathing.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Face on fire, she slowly straightened up, pushing away from the sink's counter, where she'd been leaning for the last half hour to avoid returning to the table and sitting too close to the enemy. She feared what she might do to him if he said the wrong thing, so she'd put distance between them.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>A continent would have been far enough.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Dropping her hands, she stared out at the dark waters of the Atlantic with a sense of despair as deeply blue as the endless horizon before her.</p><p>Two days ago, the plan had been simple: hunt and destroy horcruxes.</p><p>Then Malfoy had appeared, and now there were new schemes in play, ideas that could change the outcome of any skirmish in the future. Enslaved witches and wizards—<em>their friends and innocents alike</em>—could wind up being the soldiers they faced across the battlefield, as Death Eaters commanded them to fight from afar. An expendable army of unwilling slaves that would whittle down the resistance's forces one <em>Avada</em> at a time, as people on the side of light dropped their wands and refused to harm their relatives and friends.</p><p>Bellatrix Lestrange's program had far reaching effects that could alter the course of the war and lose it for the Order. It seemed their window of opportunity to prevent the spell's completion and to somehow erase the knowledge of it from the minds of all who'd helped in its creation had narrowed considerably.</p><p>Actually, that wasn't true at all, was it? They were <em>already</em> out of time as the spell had been perfected and was in production; Kevin Entwhistle had died to prove it.</p><p>Malfoy was right; they needed to move on this immediately…and he was their best option as an asset within the ranks who could play the role of a double agent. That was, <em>if</em> he wasn't playing all of <em>them</em> for fools…</p><p>"He's here for you, isn't he? Malfoy, I mean."</p><p>She jumped a little as Harry settled into the space at her side and took in the view.</p><p>With his hands shoved into his jean pockets and his hair ruffled by the wind, her best friend looked nothing like the boy she'd first met. The idealism was still lodged deep in his heart, but the burdens he'd hefted around for years had weighed upon him. Yes, they'd straightened his spine and strengthened his shoulders; he no longer slouched and now stood as a man. Yet, that rapid maturity had left its mark upon his face and had dulled the glimmer in his eyes just a bit.</p><p>"I didn't trust him, you know," he told her after a stretch of silence wherein Hermione wasn't sure how to answer his question. There was weariness in his voice, she noted, that spoke of days without much sleep. "When he first showed up at camp, I knew he'd gotten to Ron somehow. I pretended to accept him to find out what he'd really wanted, though. I just want you to know that I saw and trusted your instincts."</p><p>"Well, Mister Potter, I do believe Alastor Moody would have been quite proud," she commented with wry smirk sent his way. "You have all the makings of an Auror: Slytherin sly and Gryffindor brave."</p><p>He chuckled and it was good to see a smile split his face and, for a moment, his youthfulness returned. The smile was quick to fade, however, resigning itself back into the lines of age in rapid succession until the mischievous eleven-year-old boy under it was buried again, another casualty of war.</p><p>The loss of it brought a pang to Hermione's heart.</p><p>At least her best friend hadn't been a complete boob about believing Malfoy's change of heart. That was quite the relief. For a while there, she'd thought he'd been wooed by the garden serpent.</p><p>It seemed she'd underestimated Harry again.</p><p>"And you?" he finally asked, when the moment shifted back to the present. "Is that what you are as well?"</p><p>Hermione frowned.</p><p>Was she?</p><p>"I…suppose so," she admitted at last. "I know I am not the same girl I was when we first met. Growing up means change, and not always in the ways we had expected. It's inevitable."</p><p>To her surprise, he pulled his hand from his pocket and reached out to entwine their fingers.</p><p>"At least you're not looking for Neville's toad anymore," he agreed.</p><p>"No, thank goodness. It was sad when Trevor died, but I think Neville is one of those people who is better off without a Familiar."</p><p>They were quiet for a while after that, holding hands and staring out at the restless horizon.</p><p>"He wants you," he told her without any lead or fanfare. "His eyes never leave you."</p><p>She sighed, hating to return to this old argument.</p><p>"Ron understands it's not-"</p><p>"Not him," Harry interrupted her. "Malfoy."</p><p>Her insides turned cold in a nanosecond.</p><p>"He…can't."</p><p>It was the best she could offer to throw him off the scent, because the truth was that she was aware of her first lover's silent game of observation, as she'd deployed the same tactic on him last year until she'd gotten his attention. Why he'd flipped that narrative on her was the unanswered mystery that was keeping her up at nights.</p><p>"He does," Harry told her very assured of that fact. "I'm not clear on how it happened, but I know when," he told her, solemn and serious. "Last school year, you and Malfoy both…changed around the Easter hols. After that, you always seemed to be waiting for something from him, and he went out of his way to avoid you."</p><p>Yes, that just about summed up those months after their rendezvous in the Room of Requirement.</p><p>"And then you <em>Sectumsempra'd</em> him right into the hospital," she reminded him.</p><p>Harry was quite for a moment in the face of that awful moment, when he'd almost crossed a line, and Hermione took those seconds to prepare her argument to the inevitable, just as she had earlier inside the house…</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>"Don't you dare," she hissed, letting Malfoy know without words that she would rip out his tongue if he stepped any closer to their shared secret. What she'd done with him that afternoon last year in the Come-and-Go Room wasn't anyone else's business. It was her skeleton to bury, and he had no right to tell anyone else, as far as she was concerned. "One time, I tried to save you from a colossal mistake! Just once I trusted you, and look where it's gotten us. Never again, Malfoy! Do you hear me? Never. Again."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>It was there in Draco's eyes, the desire to speak of the taboo event they'd enjoyed so fully that day, to finally confront it with screaming accusations and burning resentment.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>To her surprise, he held his tongue and backed away from that edge, though.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Fine, but if you want access to Bella's research on the spell, only I can get that for you," he stated with supreme confidence, the likes of which he hadn't shown since their earlier days at school when he'd strutted through the corridors of Hogwarts as if he owned every square inch of the property. The Littlest Lordling was back at his game, and he would blackmail her into helping him by promising her his silence. "I'll need your big brain to pick through what's relevant and what's not. I'm not an expert on Mind Magic, only on shutting it out."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"You're an Occulmens?" Harry asked, surprised by the news.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Did you expect any less? He was able to keep everyone from knowing what he was up to last year." She waved her hand in his direction, as if dismissing him and his ludicrous schemes. "I don't doubt he's learned quite a bit at the feet of his Dark Lord since he joined their cause."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Her enemy looked like he was about to crack his molars with all the grinding of his jaw he was doing right then. "I had to volunteer," he said, very softly and yet the words were poison to her ears, hissed through his teeth at her, specifically. "The Dark Lord was going to kill my father after failing at the Ministry to retrieve Potter's prophecy. I had to vow to serve to make it right. There was no other choice."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"I gave you a way out last year," she reminded him with renewed fury. "You simply chose not to take it!"</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"I WANTED TO," he shouted, finally losing his temper and banging his fist on the table as he abruptly shot to his feet, overturning the chair under him. "You have no fucking idea how much, Granger!"</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Then why didn't you?" she screamed back, aware that everyone else in the room was watching them, concerned and curious as to why the enmity existed, waiting out the revelation of the secret that bound her to her childhood rival. Yet, despite feeling their eyes upon her, knowing their ears were opened wide now to take in every nuance for later consideration, Hermione couldn't stop her mouth from running off a year's worth of anger and disappointment in Draco Malfoy, the boy she'd given so much of herself to that day in the Room of Requirement. "Why didn't you trust me?"</em>
</p><p>
  <em>She wiped furiously at the tears that flooded her vision, turning it wavy.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Why didn't you give us a chance?"</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Who 'us' was, Hermione wasn't entirely sure, herself. Did she mean the Order of the Phoenix, or something more personal, more intimate an inclusion? Was she angry because he'd rejected her offer of salvation, or because he'd rejected what they'd begun to build that afternoon in a secret seventh floor storage room in each other's arms? At the moment, her mind and other parts of herself were at war with the answer.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Malfoy's anger shivered under the weight of her words, his fury blowing out as quickly as it had come. His mercurial nature flipped a switch, and an icy calm settled over him. "You're right," he admitted with a subtle flinch that left no doubt to the hit his pride had just taken. "I threw it all away and Dumbledore died, and that's my fault." He leaned on the table, head bowed and shaggy hair shielding his eyes, the vision of the penitent. "I can't change that…but I can help now. I can get Bella's grimoire and you can use it to stop her turning people into slaves."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He glanced up through the platinum fringe in his eyes and Hermione could see the resolve in him, so grown up and transformative. For a moment, she could envision the man he would become in a few more years as his body and face matured into full adulthood, and her heart did a bizarre little flip that left her feeling a bit weak kneed.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Damn him and his pure-blood genetics, he still had a wicked deceit in his smile and a clever tongue to match! He would never be trustworthy, and she would not be fooled again, she vowed.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"I'm reaching out to you this time," he told her as he straightened up. Within seconds, he'd regained much of the control he'd slipped, she noted, as if he'd once again compartmentalized his emotions into neat shelves in his mind. She wondered if he was currently thumbing through 'S' for 'sincere' or 'C' for 'cunning'.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Most likely the latter.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Today, I'm offering you the choice, Granger. Take it or leave it."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Hermione," Harry gently warned her against an immediate response, "we should talk."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Ron was nodding in agreement.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Bill and Fleur exchanged another of those mystery couple glances, but this time the words may have well have been shouted to the rafters: they'd guessed she'd slept with Malfoy and that this argument was as much a 'lover's spat' as it was about magical enslavement spells.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Was it?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>That she had to ask that question at all bothered her beyond measure.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Later," she growled to her friends and stomped out of the house to take some comfort from the chilly air and the ocean spray...</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Why had she ever taken it upon herself to learn his secrets last year? Why had she allowed her curiosity to open a door that now she was having trouble closing, despite all rationale? Malfoy was a conniving, self-serving, untrustworthy, bigoted worm. Sex with him should not have, in any form, changed that opinion, especially as he had done nothing since to prove better.</p><p>So why, then, did she feel so strangely whenever he glanced at her?</p><p>Why could she not stop dreaming about what they'd done together?</p><p>Anger at her own foolish self for feeling such things was spilling over into her interactions with him…and now Harry and Ron, Bill and Fleur were all privy to that fact.</p><p>"Whatever you've done, Hermione," Harry said, giving her hand a gentle squeeze, "I won't judge. Just please be careful. He's dangerous."</p><p>"I know."</p><p>"…Although if you did shag him, I might be traumatized for life and require therapy."</p><p>Hermione laughed, and it was a genuine merry sound that came from her belly.</p><p>It was the first time she'd done so in almost a year. It felt good.</p><p>"I think we're all going to be candidates for counseling when this war ends," she joked. "Come on, let's go back."</p><p>They turned and as their hands unclasped, he held his arm out for her to take. She did so and they fell into step, scrunching through sand that was already filling her shoes.</p><p>"I want to hear Malfoy's plans," her best friend said as they approached the cottage. "If he's going to demand you accompany him into enemy territory, we need to know what you're walking into and how to get you out in case of emergency."</p><p>"So you believe him, then?"</p><p>He stopped them at the front door, where they both removed their shoes and shook out the sand.</p><p>"My instincts say he's telling the truth for once. The camps definitely sound like something Tom would embrace. I'm worried he has bigger plans for that slave spell than just creating house maids and cooks for the pure-bloods, though. There's the potential for the captives to be used as soldiers on his front lines."</p><p>"To fight against us," she agreed. "I thought the same thing. That's why I thought it too important a possibility to ignore. It would cripple us to have to face off against our families and friends, if it came down to a battle."</p><p>"We should hear Malfoy's whole plan, then, because going after Bellatrix might be just as important as what we've been doing. It might even lead us to a horcrux or two at the same time."</p><p>"Are we doing this without the other Order members?"</p><p>Harry replaced his shoes on his feet.</p><p>"I don't think we can afford to waste any more time debating the issue…and you know Molly would fight it," he admitted. "Besides, calling a council together might be a security risk we can't afford right now. All those people congregating in one spot would make it easy for the Death Eaters to wipe us out in one blow."</p><p>"So you want us to go this alone?"</p><p>He adjusted his spectacles on his nose. "Not necessarily. You were right when you said at Christmas that we could cover more ground if we had more eyes on the land and ears to doors. The Order has manpower. There are a lot of sympathizers who aren't part of it, but who would be willing to spy for them, too. I don't want to put any more people at risk, but we're out of options and it feels as if the longer this drags on, the less chance we have of winning this war. If Malfoy's plan is a good one, the Order can split into teams—some to hunt for horcruxes, others to distract the Death Eaters-"</p><p>"-And some to help shut down the slave camps and end that initiative."</p><p>He nodded.</p><p>"I take it you are on Team Horcrux?" she asked him.</p><p>Harry grinned at her.</p><p>"Do I get that t-shirt if I agree?"</p><p>She nudged him with her elbow.</p><p>"I suppose I'm on Team Free-the-Slaves, then," she said with a sigh.</p><p>Harry threw his arm around her shoulders and laughed.</p><p>"So what else is new?"</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Rivalry</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <hr/><p>Charlie arrived first, stepping through the Floo and taking up all the space in the house with his domineering presence.</p><p>The last time Hermione had seen him had been at Bill and Fleur's wedding the prior summer. Then, he had been all smiles for his big brother, his stance relaxed and his mouth more than a little flirty with all the single witches.</p><p>Now, he was a fiery sun with a storm at his heels.</p><p>"Hermione," he acknowledged her after greeting his brothers and sister-in-law. His head nod was curt, all business. "Glad you're safe."</p><p>He moved on to greet Harry before she could reply, dismissing any chance for casual conversation.</p><p>When his blue gaze locked on Malfoy across the room, an instant after pulling his hand back from Harry's, everyone seemed to hold their breath. Recognition came a moment later and then the air practically crackled with Charlie's desire to unleash violence upon the young wizard, the object of so much unintended misery for so many.</p><p>Malfoy turned grey, recognizing the threat before him.</p><p>Ron took a step closer to his blond friend, as if to shield him from any possible harm. He, too, sensed the tightly held coil of fury contained deep inside the brother he'd always admired and knew it was a tenuous hold at best.</p><p>What had happened to turn Charlie into…this?</p><p>Viktor came through the Floo then, interrupting what might have been a very nasty interrogation of their turncoat Death Eater. The green roar of flames announced him as he stepped out with a stride that now seemed quite comfortable on solid ground, where once he'd been as awkward upon the flat surface as a duck out of water.</p><p>Like Charlie, Viktor exuded a strong man's confidence.</p><p>Unlike his co-captain, however, the burly Bulgarian blew in on a wind of calm reminiscent of the likes of Dumbledore and Shacklebolt—a man of judicious, unflinching purpose. When he greeted his hosts, his words were careful and his tone modulated, and his handshake was firm with assurance.</p><p>He showed her no such restraint, however. His smile filled the room and warmed the amber flecks in his dark eyes as they alighted upon her.</p><p>"Mila," he greeted her, wrapping her up in a tight, familiar hug that brought tears of relief to Hermione's eyes. "Is good to see you again! I vas worried as you disappear from tent that night."</p><p>"I'm sorry," she offered around the lump in her throat. For the first time, she felt genuinely guilty for having ditched the rest of the Order for half a year. Traveling into the wilds and cutting off all communication to protect Harry had been the right thing to do, but it had come at a cost. They'd distressed their friends. "We had to. We have our own mission, Viktor."</p><p>"Da," he said, pulling back and brushing the curls behind her ear, as he'd frequently done the year they'd first met. "It is… How you say? Water under bridge. Now you have returned to us." He seemed genuinely happy at that fact. "Come, you must tell all."</p><p>Wiping the tears from her eyes, her lips trembled as she smiled at him in return and agreed, letting him take her hand and guide her through the kitchen to the living room, where they all took seats on anything that would support their weight. She sat at Viktor's right, while Harry and Bill both helped Fleur into the remaining spot on the opposite side of the sofa.</p><p>Charlie, she noticed, kept a room's length between himself and Malfoy, who was ignoring the threat presented by the second eldest Weasley son and instead glaring at her.</p><p>Hermione resolutely ignored him.</p><p>Once everyone was situated, Viktor and Charlie shared a silent glance that spoke volumes, and then the former Quidditch star took the lead.</p><p>"So, Mila, tell us your tale."</p><p>She and Harry shared a look similar to that of the Order leaders, their own unique brand of silent discussion a result of seven years of best friendship. She didn't bother consulting Ron, though, when she might once have. He still hadn't earned her forgiveness much less her trust after running off and bringing this mess back to sort out.</p><p>Harry, it seemed, was content to leave the telling of their story to her, so Hermione launched into a recap of the events that had proceeded and then followed Dumbledore's death, leaving little out as it was time the Order knew what they were facing, in her estimation—Harry's pensieve trips through the life of a young Tom Riddle, Slytherin's ring and Tom's diary horcruxes, and after their mentor had been murdered, the pact to go it alone to find the remaining horcruxes and the preparations made to ensure a clean break. She'd omitted Obliviating her parents, merely mentioning that they'd gone into hiding out of the country and were safely tucked away where none could find them. Then, she'd discussed the daring theft of Slytherin's locket and its influence upon all who had contact, being sure to send a silent censuring glance in Ron's direction.</p><p>He went white and eyes downcast at the mention of his cowardly abandonment, despite the fact Hermione had framed it in a way as to make it seem more the locket's fault and no flaw in Ron's innate character to start.</p><p>"So these horcruxes," Bill interrupted, "they influence you with evil if you touch them?"</p><p>She nodded. "A piece of the Dark Lord's soul is trapped in them for safekeeping, to prevent him from ever actually dying forever. With them, he can resurrect a body for himself and use that piece of his soul to live again inside the flesh."</p><p>"How many of zees horcruxes are out zere?" Fleur asked, rubbing her protruding belly in a nervous gesture.</p><p>"We're…not sure," Harry admitted, rubbing at his scar for the same reason. "Hermione constructed a timeline of Tom Riddle's life one day while we were in the tent, waiting out a rainstorm, but there's a lot we don't know. Missing years. Who knows how many people he'd killed then."</p><p>To her surprise, it was Malfoy who pointed out the one thing none of them had considered.</p><p>"Salazar Slytherin's ring and locket are the precious relics of a Hogwarts Founder. It's probably not a coincidence they hold pieces of the Dark Lord's soul in them."</p><p>"You're saying the Dark Lord chose them for a reason?" Ron asked, intrigued by the idea. He seemed to turn that over in his head. "Yeah, I could see… No one would want to destroy them, right? They're important history."</p><p>"What safer place to hide," Charlie agreed.</p><p>"It would be a blasphemy to despoil them," Hermione concurred. "No one would dare…except Dumbledore, of course. He did destroy the ring."</p><p>Malfoy looked particularly pained by that.</p><p>"Yes, but at a cost I certainly wouldn't want to pay."</p><p>Ron's head turned sharply at that.</p><p>"What d'ya mean?" he demanded.</p><p>"His hand," Malfoy replied with a nonchalant shrug. "It was cursed—shriveled and dying. I'd wager that would be the exact kind of spell the Dark Lord would cast on an object of importance, don't you?" When it was clear no one else in the circle knew what he was referring to, he sighed. "Didn't <em>any</em> of you notice how he covered his right hand with his sleeve at every chance, and how he switched to his left hand to cast spells?"</p><p>Now that he'd mentioned it… Yes, Hermione had noticed, although she'd given it little attention at the time. That afternoon she'd stood in the Headmaster's office and confessed that she'd known of Malfoy's plans and of her offer to help him escape his fate, she'd seen the desiccated flesh he'd attempted to keep out of her line of sight and hidden by his robes. She'd assumed it a spell gone wrong and that Madam Pomfrey could fix it right up.</p><p>What a fool she'd been not to put it together!</p><p>"You're saying that was the horcrux ring?" Harry asked. He seemed particularly interested in that connection. "You're sure?"</p><p>"It makes sense, Harry," she interjected. "The locket's attempted to prevent us from finding a way to destroy it by turning us on each other with insidious whispering in our ears. The ring must have had another kind of curse put upon it, possibly when someone tried to wear it."</p><p>Malfoy leaned further into the shadows of the room's corner to escape Charlie's unwavering scrutiny. "Seems the Dark Lord used two of Salazar Slytherin's most precious keepsakes to protect his soul pieces. Makes you wonder what else he's used for the same purpose."</p><p>"I assume you have an idea," Harry put it to his childhood rival, recognizing that same look in Malfoy's eye that Hermione did: that of a snake hiding a secret.</p><p>The blond shrugged. "If I had to guess, I'd say something important from another Founder. Maybe Rowena Ravenclaw, since it's rumoured he'd fancied her until his death, despite having a wife." He tossed Hermione a veiled look. "The things a man does for the woman he desires..."</p><p>Next to her, Viktor shifted so his arm wrapped around the back of the sofa until his hand curled next to her head. It was a blatantly possessive move that shocked her and seemed to irritate Malfoy, whose lids narrowed in agitation.</p><p>Hermione cleared her throat and sat forward a bit in her seat. "For that matter, why wouldn't he have chosen something from every Founder? According to <em>Hogwarts, A History</em>, he'd been Godric Gryffindor's best friend at one time, and the godfather to Helga Hufflepuff's niece."</p><p>That seemed to resonate with Harry, who began nodding his head.</p><p>"Yeah, that's something Tom would have done. Taking something that's…well…."</p><p>"Sacred?" Hermione supplied.</p><p>"Yes, that," Harry said, snapping his fingers and pointing at her with mounting enthusiasm. "Stealing from every House an important keepsake or something, and then perverting it with dark magic and murder just to prove he could."</p><p>"Each kill marked by an important trophy," Bill growled. "Greyback does something similar, I hear."</p><p>"Souvenir collecting is common among psychopaths," Hermione agreed, having once watched a fascinating documentary on the issue of serial killers during a summer break. "Right, then all we need to do is to identify the most important artefacts from Hogwarts' history and check them for horcruxes. There aren't that many, really. Most of them were in the Headmaster's office, the last time I'd gone."</p><p>Malfoy snorted. "Snape spends most of his time in there. Good luck getting past him…if you can get into the school at all without being recognized." He pointed to Harry's forehead. "Curses like that don't take to glamour charms."</p><p>"You'd know," Harry fired back, staring pointedly at Malfoy's chest where the scars from his Sectumsempra curse had left their mark.</p><p>Viktor finally spoke up.</p><p>"So you are sneaking into castle, yes? Good, I go. Potter stay."</p><p>"No!" simultaneous protests erupted from the group at that, Hermione among them.</p><p>Her Bulgarian friend seemed perplexed by the enmity towards his idea.</p><p>"Why no?"</p><p>It was up to Hermione to be the voice of reason, when it was clear Charlie, Fleur, Harry, and Bill all wanted to rip Viktor's plans to shreds. "You're recognizable, too," she pointed out, turning to him and tapping him on the cheek in a friendly manner to diffuse any tension. "Everyone loves Krum, right?"</p><p>That had been the clever marketing banner waved ever since his World Cup victory nearly three years prior.</p><p>His answering grin was slow and devastating to Hermione's pulse, which began pounding in her ears. She remembered how he'd loved to turn that same look on her back when she'd been an impressionable fifteen-year-old virgin, whenever they'd been alone. It had always left her a bit flustered then, but at the time she hadn't understood why. Now that she was older and sexually experienced, she understood the heat behind the gleaming teeth.</p><p>It seemed Viktor, too, had lost his juvenile awkwardness over the years.</p><p>"Everyone, eh?" he asked, clearly flirting with her.</p><p>Hermione's face felt on fire.</p><p>In the corner of the room, Malfoy stirred. "Sorry, Vic, but she's coming with me when we leave here," he interjected, sounding supremely annoyed at a man he considered his rival for her attention. "Granger and I have a mission that doesn't include you or going to the castle."</p><p>"We haven't discussed that mission yet," Harry pointed out, casting a dark look Malfoy's way.</p><p>"We 'aven't actually discussed <em>any</em> of zees yet!"</p><p>Leave it to Fleur to point out the obvious.</p><p>Charlie shifted in his chair, casting his sister-in-law a quick glance that spoke volumes about his repressed desire for the witch. Hermione was sure he hadn't meant to televise such a thing, especially in front of his older brother, but when in the presence of a pregnant Veela, she also knew from having done a project on them during third year for extra credit that their magical pheromones could affect men in unexpected and…<em>uncomfortable</em>…ways.</p><p>"Mind explaining to the rest of us what you're talking about?" he asked.</p><p>Hermione rolled her eyes at Malfoy's bristling, Viktor's amusement, Charlie's awkward arousal for Fleur, Bill's discouraging frown towards his brother, Harry's anticipation for a fight, and Ron's neutrality, and sighed at the myriad ways testosterone could ruin a perfectly good afternoon. "To fill you in, Malfoy's made us aware of a new weapon in the war that the Dark Lord is concocting, and he's agreed to turn spy for us to get access to it to destroy it," she told Charlie and Viktor. "I'm integral to that plan, apparently, although-" She glared at her ex-lover across the room. "-he has yet to explain why and how to my satisfaction."</p><p>This time, it was Malfoy's wicked smile that made things flip and flutter in Hermione's stomach.</p><p>"Oh, I can definitely satisfy your curiosity, Granger," he promised, "as soon as we're alone."</p><p>Viktor's hand slipped from the back of the sofa to fall upon her shoulders, staking a blatant romantic claim.</p><p>As gently as she could, Hermione removed Viktor's arm, making it clear she was not some prize to be won by anyone, and yet doing so in such a way as to not hurt his feelings at the same time. "Don't be vile," she replied to the only Slytherin in the room…although she had to wonder what Viktor's sorting would have been had he gone to their school instead, especially given how smooth and sneaky that last move had been. "Tell us instead all about your miraculous plan to save wizarding Britain from your Aunt's insanity, won't you."</p><p>"Yeah, Malfoy, do tell," Harry added, almost daring the blond to try one of his Slytherin-honed lies on a room full of seasoned Order members just looking for a reason to use their wands on him. "I'd dying to know why you felt Hermione was the only one here who could help you."</p><p>It was amusing to watch those cunning grey eyes of their 'prisoner-guest' twitch back and forth between her and the others, trying to work out a way around having to divulge too much information. Caught between a rock and a hard place, however, Malfoy soon became resigned to the fact that he had no choice but to lay out to the group the details of his plans for the slave collars. It was clear he didn't like having things turned around on him, though.</p><p>…And it was equally obvious to Hermione that, despite the fact he was outgunned by a half-werewolf, a pregnant half-Veela, the two leaders of the Second Order of the Phoenix, herself, Ron, and the Boy-Who-Lived, Malfoy viewed Viktor Krum as the biggest threat in the room.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Regrets</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>'Mila' is a Bulgarian term of affection meaning, 'honey' or 'sweetie'.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <hr/><p>The wind was cooler now that night was approaching. The sunset over the water was spectacular to watch from the beach as it cast the last of the day's warm reflections upon the dark, curling swells of the icy Atlantic. Overhead, the gulls had quieted too, bedding down in anticipation for the coming night. No motorized sounds or lights from oncoming cars appeared on the narrow road that lazily wound through the hills to the north, either.</p><p>It was as if the world was simply too tired tonight and she needed her sleep.</p><p>As Hermione closed her eyes to block out the last three hours of fierce and intense debate over Malfoy's plans, she could intimately relate to Mother Nature's exhaustion.</p><p>How she'd missed the simple peace her life had been before Hogwarts, before discovering that the miracle of magic came with an agonizing price…</p><p>It had been more than a few years since she'd centered her soul and reconnected to the earth; she'd spent so much time with her nose in a book, trying to achieve goals and dodge spells—with a head filled with complex problems requiring inventive solutions—that she'd forgotten the humble joy that came with letting go of herself and coupling her aura to something far older and immensely more powerful than her wand or even the library. Regulating her breathing, she let her consciousness drift until at last, she no longer counted the seconds and her mind went still. The heartbeat in her ears faded, until it too became a distant pulse down an endless corridor of possibilities.</p><p>That's when it happened once again.</p><p>Time shifted.</p><p><em>"Draco, stop!"</em> she heard herself shout, her voice distant as if coming up from a well. <em>"Theo didn't mean any harm!"</em></p><p><em>"Bullshit, he was sucking your face blue, Granger!"</em> Malfoy hissed. <em>"You two-faced son-of-a-bitch, Nott! Is this how you treat old friends?"</em></p><p><em>"Old friends? When were we ever that, Draco?"</em> a man angrily replied. Hermione didn't recognize the voice, but she assumed from the conversation that it was Theodore Nott, their former classmate and the subject of Malfoy's ire. <em>"I was only ever a means to an end for you, and we both know it. Just like Crabbe. Just like Goyle. Just like Pansy and Millie. All of us! Zabini there hasn't gotten the message yet, but give it time."</em> He chuckled, and it was the kind of sad, resigned sound of someone giving up on another. <em>"Face it, Malfoy, the only person you have ever actually cared about is yourself."</em></p><p><em>"It was an innocent goodbye kiss,"</em> she insisted, filling the awkward silence that followed with another attempt to diffuse the situation. <em>"Theo was letting me go."</em></p><p><em>"You're delusional,"</em> Malfoy fired back. <em>"Look at him, sitting there so smug… Just like Krum. He'll never accept that you're mine. He's in love with you and right now, he's thinking of all the ways he can kill me and get away with it. He's thinking of his victory fuck with you when it's over!"</em></p><p><em>"Mate, enough,"</em> someone…was that Blaise Zabini?...interceded. <em>"Stop before you say anything else you'll regret."</em></p><p>Slapping her hands over her ears, Hermione began counting the seconds again to regain her placement in the here and now. This time, it only took until she reached sixty-five until she felt the tightly-packed sand beneath her trainers and heard the ocean's gentle roar again.</p><p>Opening her eyes, she looked around.</p><p>It was still night, but now the moon was up, where it hadn't been before.</p><p>How long had she gone this time? An hour or maybe two? It couldn't have been much more than that as the tide was still out.</p><p>Unfortunately, she had no way to check how much of a slip she'd taken this jaunt except to go back inside the cottage and ask someone, as she'd stopped wearing a watch on her wrist years ago, when the bizarre time surges began. The mechanisms in them would simply stop working whenever she moved between magical time barriers, and so it was a waste of money to keep replacing them.</p><p>Shivering in her coat, she through perhaps it was high past time she should go inside anyway. It was still January, and despite the earlier Warming charm she'd cast, the night had brought with it a chill that could root itself in the bones if not recast every few hours.</p><p>That was something she'd learned intimately over the past few months of living in a tent.</p><p>As she turned to head back into the cottage, she considered the issue of her displaced time once more… Would that argument she'd overheard between her, Malfoy, Nott, and Zabini actually come to pass or was it merely another 'potential echo' of things that could happen, but might not if the right set of circumstances altered that future?</p><p>At least this time, because she'd kept her eyes closed, she hadn't actually seen any transparent figures arguing. There had been only the voices.</p><p>Thank God for that.</p><p>"You vill catch sickness, Mila," Viktor chided her as he met her half-way up the beach. She nearly collided with him, so lost in her head that she hadn't noticed his approach. He removed his cloak and quickly wrapped it around her shoulders. "England is cold, da," he stated the obvious as he rubbed up and down her arms to create warmth through friction, "but not so much as Norway, I think. Durmstrang is always… How you say?Like icebox in winter."</p><p>Sick of spinning her wheels considering her problems, she focussed instead on Viktor's sudden appearance. Had he been looking for her for a reason? "Thank you," she replied, huddling into the inner fur lining of his borrowed cloak. It carried his lingering body heat. "Is Harry done fighting with Malfoy yet? Am I needed inside?"</p><p>To her surprise, Viktor stopped her from proceeding into the house and instead, wrapped her up in his embrace.</p><p>"Snake and lion always fight, from beginning of time," he joked. "No change."</p><p>Well, he wasn't wrong there.</p><p>"But no, you are no needed yet," he told her. "Charles and Potter will fight with little Weasley and blond boy about details. Oldest Weasley and wife go to bed early."</p><p>"I'd like to be in there, to give input," she said. "I'm sure there's something they're missing, or forgetting-"</p><p>Viktor sighed, and his breath was hot and sweet against her throat, giving her gooseflesh.</p><p>"Mila, it has been so long since I hold you. Will you let me again for… How you say? A stitch of time?"</p><p>Seeing no reason for not granting his request, especially given the lovely smell of his after shave and how his hard body was both warm and comforting, Hermione stop trying to escape him and instead allowed his touch, enjoying it as well.</p><p>As she rested quietly in his embrace, she wondered how many years had she and Viktor been playing this game—was it really going on three now? Goodness, the night of the Yule Ball seemed an Age and another lifetime ago now… Her Bulgarian date had stolen her first kiss from her that same night. That moment had cemented their friendship, as they'd laughed together at having banged their teeth and how they'd both shaken with nerves.</p><p>It wasn't until she'd visited him briefly during the summer before her sixth year, after recovering from Dolohov's curse, when her parents had taken her on a holiday through the Balkans to get her out of England, that she'd discovered why Viktor had been so timid that night: she'd been his first kiss, too.</p><p>If only they'd taken things further then! True, there hadn't been much of a chance for them to be alone, as her mum and dad had been particularly over-protective of her after her near-death experience with that awful curse. Still, if she'd had the opportunity to do it all over again, she'd have picked Viktor to be her first lover during that trip, instead of…</p><p>
  <em>"I regret being with you."</em>
</p><p>Five words had been enough to shatter her innocence once and for all.</p><p>Whispered to her merely one week after they'd lain together, Malfoy's confession had been the most mortifying moment of Hermione's life.</p><p>At least she could take some small amount of vindication from his shock as she'd hauled back and slapped him hard enough to make her hand sting. Yes, he'd been an invalid lying in the Hospital Wing, recovering from Harry nearly killing him with Snape's cursed spell, and she'd assaulted him and run out with tears in her eyes and disappointment in her heart, but he'd deserved it.</p><p>She wouldn't forgive him for it, either…defection or not.</p><p>"Malfoy has dangerous plan," Viktor said after a long stretch of silence.</p><p>"I know," she replied.</p><p>Malfoy's scheme was clever, but came with many risks, specifically his mother refusing to help the Order. She was the lynch pin to their success, and yet even Draco seemed uncertain as to where her interests may ultimately lie. It was vital, therefore, to secure her loyalty and there was only one way to ensure that: convincing her that her love for her son was stronger than her commitment to pure-blood ideals.</p><p>"It make me… How you say? Unsettle in belly."</p><p>"Sick to your stomach," she whispered. "Me, too."</p><p>The thought of feigning being deeply in love with Malfoy and that she was the reason for his defection made her want to vomit from nerves. He'd made it clear how he really felt about her last year. What he'd done and said since had all been part of an act to slither his way out from under her wrath, but Hermione wasn't fooling herself that he actually felt anything genuine for her aside from, perhaps, some small sexual attraction and a sadistic enjoyment at making her squirm.</p><p>
  <em>"I regret being with you."</em>
</p><p>Merlin, could she really do this?</p><p>"Is no worst plan I have heard, though," he admitted. "Pure-blood mothers love their only sons. She will turn for him, I think."</p><p>Hermione tilted her head to the side, as if to say, 'perhaps'.</p><p>Personally, she thought it was far better than Harry's plan: that she'd pretend to be Malfoy's chattel, purchased at one of the camps. Charlie had shot that idea down quickly, though, with a reminder that Malfoy might have to prove in public their master-slave relationship in ways that could be violent and awful for her, and Ron had pointed out that should she come to anyone else's attention, she would then truly become a prisoner of war.</p><p>She also thought it miles above Fleur's suggestion that Malfoy sneak her into Lestrange Manor somehow, as there would invariably be old and powerful blood wards around the place that would require months of research just to understand, much less come up with a counter to allow a Muggle-born to cross the line. It was Bill, the former Cursebreaker in the group, who had gently reminded his wife of the difficulties of her plan.</p><p>Hermione had suggested they find the blueprints to the house and grounds, on the hopes they might discover a secret passage past the wards, but even as she'd talked through the plan, its most glaring flaw—that studying the property's schematics to find its weaknesses would require days or even weeks to consider—became apparent to her.</p><p>Time to devote to such analysis was something they didn't have to give.</p><p>No, their best bet was Malfoy's plan to rely on Narcissa's affections for her son, to twist and use those feelings to manipulate her into helping them. It was the fastest and most likely successful means to achieve their goals, especially given his scheme for quickly assuring his mother's capitulation...</p><p><em>"We'll have to be perfect or she'll see right through the lie,"</em> Malfoy had told her with a wicked, triumphant gleam in his eye. <em>"There can't be any doubt, Granger."</em></p><p>He meant they'd have to pretend to be lovers.</p><p>…Like they had that afternoon in the Room of Requirement, when they'd set aside everything—their history of enmity, their House sortings, and even their beliefs—to enjoy what they might have had if things had been different…</p><p>The longer aim of convincing Narcissa to betray her sister's trust so she might have access to Bellatrix's home, where the mad woman's grimoire was located, would put Malfoy's mother in danger, of course, but the witch had proven herself more than capable of handling her sister, according to their Slytherin turn-coat.</p><p>It all depended on Hermione being able to swallow her pride and set aside her anger to accept Malfoy's touch, his kiss, maybe even more. Whatever it took to assure his mother believed their fake relationship, she'd have to do.</p><p>"Can you do is question," Viktor asked her, pulling back slightly to look her in the face. "Lies do not become you, Hermi-o-nee."</p><p>No, they didn't. She hated keeping secrets. She could do it, obviously, but it was always a heavy weight upon her shoulders that she felt darkened her soul.</p><p>"I think so," she told him, knowing she'd have no choice but to lie in this case. "No, I can do this! If it's for the Second Order, I can do this, Viktor. Trust me."</p><p>Viktor was quiet for a long while, his dark gaze taking all of her in as if he could see past her fake smile and into the very heart of her.</p><p>"I know you can do, Mila, but…I fear," he finally whispered and bent his head to her cold lips. "I cannot lose you."</p><p>His kiss stole her breath, warmed her blood, made her toes curl. She returned it, tentative at first, but with a passion that grew with each draw of breath and every pull of his mouth.</p><p>Dizzy with need, she hardly felt the world spin as he turned them on the spot, taking them further down the beach. There, hidden by the dunes and the soft Marram grass, lying back onto ground that was dry and a little more solid, Viktor finally made love to her. As the moon rose higher in the sky, so he moved within her, just as slow and sweet. They came together in a heat that banished the night's chill, in a promise that had been repressed for years but had been as inevitable a meeting as the tide slowly coming back in to shore.</p><p>After, as she lay in Viktor's arms, he stroked her skin and whispered in sleepy Bulgarian of contentment and affection before drifting off into dreams.</p><hr/><p>Sometime later, Hermione awoke to find it was still dark out, and that their naked bodies had been covered by his furry cloak. She was deliciously warm…and decidedly damp between her legs.</p><p>Both sensations felt wonderful.</p><p>Pushing aside the curtain of thin grass, she looked over the edges of their little love nest for Shell Cottage, but could find no sign of its lights. It had been disappeared by the wards they'd crossed to escape its endless interruptions, and she could not even gaze long in the house's general direction without the spells upon it turning her attention elsewhere.</p><p>"Do not look," Viktor whispered in her ear as he grasped her hips and pressed his renewed arousal against her backside. "Be with me here, Hermi-o-nee."</p><p>Turning in his arms, she looked up at him.</p><p>"I am," she promised him, and stroked a finger down his cheek. "I'm here with you, Viktor."</p><p>"Good," he said and rolled her onto her back to cover her once more. Her thighs fell open on their own, allowing him to slide back inside her, to join them once more with an easy roll of his hips. Gasping at the delicious stretch once more, she sighed into his mouth. "Then you will not forget me soon, I think," he told her, and began to move.</p><p>No, she knew she would not forget him—not ever, no matter what might come or how much time had passed.</p><hr/><p>In the morning, Viktor left for another safe house with Charlie before breakfast, preparations for the new tactics in the war that had been discussed the night before requiring their attention in the light of day.</p><p>He said goodbye to Hermione with a sad smile and a small, yellow dune flower tucked back behind her ear.</p><p>As she watched Viktor Floo away, Hermione felt a wrenching regret such as she'd never felt before, for she hadn't been able to voice her true feelings for him before he'd gone. The truth was she'd always cared deeply for him, but as for being in love... No, she couldn't commit to such a thing with him. He was her commander in the Order now that she'd rejoined it ranks as a soldier for its cause, and muddling up the chain-of-command would be inappropriate behaviour and leave them both open to accusations of potential favouritism in mission assignments. Besides, if she was being completely honest, there was still the issue of some extremely unresolved, inconvenient feelings for Malfoy that required consideration, too. It wouldn't be fair to throw her heart in Viktor's direction given its inner turmoil at the moment.</p><p>So, to keep the others from knowing what they'd been up to during the night, and to avoid anyone knowing she was a potential liability now for Viktor's safety and command integrity, when they'd finally returned to the cottage before dawn she'd had to pretend nothing had changed between them, even if everything had.</p><p>This made her sick to her stomach, too.</p><p>Viktor had been right: lying didn't suit her.</p><p>That uneasy, edgy feeling only intensified when she turned away at last from the empty Floo to find Malfoy glaring daggers at her, his lips twisted with wry cynicism. "Now you know how it feels," he told her in a low murmur as he shouldered past her to the bedroom he'd been assigned. "To lie about your true feelings to keep a person safe. Welcome to the club, Granger."</p><p>The door slammed behind him.</p><p>As was usual for any fight she had with the blond Slytherin, Hermione was once more left picking her jaw up off the floor.</p><p>
  <em>"I regret being with you."</em>
</p><p>Was he saying he'd lied about-?</p><p>"Jealous git," Harry said as he sidled up to her. He adjusted his spectacles and turned his head to her. "Let him sulk. Serves him right. I'm happy for you and Viktor, by the way. It's about time."</p><p>Hermione reached up to touch the flower at her ear.</p><p>It had been a magical night, hadn't it? Viktor had reaffirmed for her that sex could be a wonderful thing, especially in the afters. She'd needed that confirmation, especially as the first time she'd attempted sex it hadn't ended well and had left her confidence badly shaken...</p><p>She wouldn't let Malfoy spoil the beautiful memory of last night for her, as he'd spoilt so many others.</p><p>"Thanks, Harry. Just...shhh."</p><p>"I know," he said, and in his green gaze she could see he well understood her request for discretion.</p><p>He really was the <em>best</em> best friend a girl could hope for, wasn't he?</p><p>She turned away to help Fleur in the kitchen, preparing breakfast for her remaining guests as her husband stood at her side, doing dishes in the sink area.</p><p>Despite her smile and her resolve not to allow Malfoy into the space of her private business with Viktor, Hermione eyes couldn't help but stray, briefly on her way past, towards the bedroom areas to where the Order's new reluctant ally had stormed off...and to her chagrin, she had to admit her heart was more confused than ever.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Confused by the time magic issue? It was actually foreshadowed in an earlier chapter, and it's going to be revealed in coming chapters. Just roll with it for now.</p><p>And Vikmione in a Dramione? How could I!?!? I know, it's evil. Actually, it's not. It's an integral part of the plot. Wait for the revelations to unfold, please. </p><p>XOXO,<br/>RZZMG</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Fissure</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <hr/><p>"Set?"</p><p>Hermione sighed.</p><p>No, she'd never be ready for a confrontation with Narcissa Malfoy, much less one in which she was going to announce to the pure-blood matriarch the biggest lie to leave her mouth to date.</p><p>
  <em>Stiff upper lip, Hermione! You've faced worse!</em>
</p><p>The silent pep talk helped…a bit. At least she didn't feel like vomiting anymore.</p><p>Bonus.</p><p>"Let's just get this over with," she said, resigned.</p><p>Malfoy didn't make a move to head through the front gate of his property, though. Instead, he grabbed her hand to stall the inevitable. His fingers shook as they pressed hard into her wrist bones.</p><p>"I'll say it again: we have to convince her we're serious, Granger, or this whole thing is for shit. She's extremely good at sniffing out lies."</p><p>Rolling her eyes this often was beginning to make her head hurt, honestly.</p><p>"How many times must I repeat myself: I am well aware," she reminded him once more. They'd only had this same discussion an hour earlier, before they'd left Shell Cottage to Apparate into a small copse of trees a mile or so south of his family's manor. He'd taken her Side-Along to the spot after she'd won that particular argument, but he'd made a production of holding her just a tad too tight as he'd turned and cast, knowing she wouldn't be able to struggle or she'd risk splinching them both. Vindictive little git. "I know my part in all this, Malfoy. You don't have to continually beat me over the head with the details!"</p><p>"Then quit scowling and start fluttering your lashes my way," he snarled at her, "or do you reserve your flirting only for men with big muscles and small brains?"</p><p>Having had enough of his vicious snarking, she wrenched her hand from his and whirled on him. "What is your problem?" she growled under her breath, well aware that this was no place for them to be discussing last minute plans, much less bickering about them. "You've been at me for the last two days, since this scheme was decided. It was your idea to pretend to be in love, not mine!"</p><p>The corner of his lip pulled back with a sneer worthy of his father's legacy.</p><p>"Yes, and you would know all about pretending, wouldn't you?"</p><p>So he was going to go <em>there</em>, was he? Well, fine, she was feeling up to the challenge today.</p><p>"To which incident, exactly, are you referring?" she asked, <em>pretending</em> ignorance to tweak his nose. "I'll need a bit more context if I am going to consider responding to such a rude assassination of my character."</p><p>He turned his head away, as if the mere sight of her disgusted him.</p><p>"You're well aware."</p><p>"Enlighten me," she dared.</p><p>The fact was he'd been acting looney ever since Viktor had shown up at Shell Cottage—more hostile, and as Harry had pointed out, quite jealous. The idea was ludicrous, of course, as he'd made clear for years how he really felt about her.</p><p>But what if-?</p><p>Harry <em>had</em> never, actually, been wrong about sussing out Malfoy's motivations. It was like the Slytherin was an open book to her friend's keen eye.</p><p>And after all, it had been the case since the end of third year, after she'd slapped him hard enough to leave an imprint upon his cheek and in private when Harry and Ron were off and there were no other prying eyes or ears to eavesdrop, that Malfoy hadn't always been a complete and utter prat towards her. As she'd earlier considered when he'd first arrived at their camp a few days ago, there were times their banter in school had pushed the boundaries of their predestined roles, moving their conversations into the bizarre territory of 'friendly entertainment' rather than the malicious antagonism and cruel dismissal they each displayed in public. More than once, in fact, they'd shared astonished, proud smiles over particularly good verbal hits upon one another, too.</p><p>There had also been a few secret notes passed in corridors or in the library with them challenging each other over particularly difficult class assignments…usually with a taunting provocation at the end just to seal the dare.</p><p>Neither of them had ever backed down from one of those ventures, and the reward for braving it out had been a respectful nod of acknowledgement from the other, and on occasion a piece of expensive chocolate found in her satchel.</p><p>As a result of those interactions, Hermione had begun to assume by the middle of fourth year that Malfoy's public persona was more about social image and upholding his family's reputation, rather than any deeply rooted belief system he held that was steeped in prejudice.</p><p>Yes, he continued to front when his friends or her friends were about, but there was no denying the fact that he had attempted to warn her friends to get her safety during the attacks on the Quidditch World Cup, or that on the night of the Yule Ball that same year that he'd commented about how she'd looked 'passively attractive' while gently caressing a loose lock of her hair that had fallen free from her up-do to land upon her shoulder. She'd gone to bed that night with her first real case of butterflies in her belly, and she'd always known it wasn't just because Viktor had found her a few minutes after that interaction with Malfoy and had stolen her first kiss from her that night.</p><p>Something about the way Malfoy had looked at her then had blindsided her, and not even the lingering memory of Viktor's mouth on hers had been enough to make her forget it.</p><p>It was then she'd begun to really pay express attention to the Slytherin's comings and goings, and to try to work out his tells and his games of clever manipulations…to see into the true soul of the snake. That covert spy work was how she'd known that on more than one occasion, despite taking a position with the Inquisitorial Squad and pretending to be a goon for Umbridge, that he'd intentionally misled the former Hogwarts Inquisitor as to what he knew regarding students sneaking about the castle to meet for 'seditious purposes'. The first time Hermione had caught him lying in such a fashion to that pink menace of a witch, she'd been hiding under a Disillusionment charm and huddled into a dark, shadowy corner of a dungeon corridor one Sunday afternoon. She'd watched, fascinated, as he'd lied straight to the woman's face without flinching, misdirecting her search efforts to a different part of the castle by claiming he'd heard a rumour.</p><p>That fib had cost the evil Headmistress several days of wasted efforts…and Hermione had read in Malfoy's grey gaze his immense amusement at that fact.</p><p>She knew from witnessing similar bungled attempts to catch members of Dumbledore's Army that same year that he'd done so purposefully, faking a pratfall each time. Such was obvious to her, as on the Quidditch pitch, while atop his broom captaining his House team, she knew he moved with a sleek, panther-like grace, while on the ground, he was always deliberate in every action. He'd pretended ineptness only to fool Umbridge and everyone else, and he'd done it masterfully.</p><p>The question was why he defied someone like Dolores Umbridge, whom his father had openly supported, and why he'd kept up the pretense of being a blood purist, when he merely gave that belief lip service.</p><p>That had been the million-pound question that had kept Hermione up at nights…and which had led her to a place of insane conclusions and tumultuous emotions the afternoon she'd approached Malfoy in the Room of Requirement during their sixth year.</p><p>It was most likely why she was still digging at him now: the not-knowing his true motivation was driving her spare, honestly.</p><p>"Well?" she prodded when he didn't immediately reply. "Are you going to explain your need to poke at me with cruel accusations about my personality flaws, or can we simply get on with the plan now?"</p><p>He gave her a side-eye look that said his amusement had run its course, and which made clear he planned to dodge answering her directly for as long as possible. "You know, for a Gryffindor, you're amazingly deceptive. Is Potter clued-in yet to that fact, or do you have him as fooled as Weasley, who thinks you only use that particular talent for good?"</p><p>As if he had any right to censure her!</p><p>"The last I checked, the only deceiving and pretending I'll be engaged in today has to do with <em>your</em> plan," she stated, turning his accusations around on him. "You expect me to lie to bald-face lie to your mother. How very manipulative of <em>you</em>, Draco."</p><p>Maybe it was the use of his first name, or perhaps it was the reminder that this entire ruse was his idea and that he'd been the one to decide to use his mother's love for him as a honey trap, but it seemed she'd hit the mark, as he turned on her in the blink of an eye.</p><p>"This plan is for you, you maddening witch, to save your friends and every other piece of collateral damage out there!" he growled, stepping into her space and looming over her like a Dementor on the prowl, just waiting for the opportunity to siphon away pieces of her soul. "Do you think I want to lie to her? She's my <em>mother</em>, for fuck's sake!"</p><p>"Then why are you doing this at all?" she pressed. "You're under no obligation to do so. You're not a member of the Second Order!"</p><p>There, that ought to force his hand, to get him to outright admit to whatever long-running game he'd been playing with her, which had led them to this point. He'd resent her for turning the tables on him, of course, but at least it would bring the devil into the light so they could deal with it once and for all. Proper closure—that what they both needed, as they'd never had the opportunity after the events of last year, and it was obvious there was resentment enough on both sides to fill a Quidditch pitch and then some. Maybe if they had it out in one big row then they could move on with their lives…and she could stop wondering about the "what ifs" of their bizarre, undefinable relationship.</p><p>Maybe then she could stop dreaming of his touch, his voice in her ear, the way his kiss had tasted…</p><p>His chest pumped hard and his jaw looked pained as he clenched it. Clearly, he was struggling to come up with an answer he was willing to give her.</p><p>Finally, he settled on, "You know why! I can't stop…<em>this</em>. And I hate it!"</p><p>God, he sounded as if he'd just sucked back a dozen bitter lemons as he spat that admission at her.</p><p>"Stop what?" she asked as she swallowed down a dram of her own sudden and unexpected nervousness.</p><p>He closed his eyes and shuddered out a deep breath, humming once a single monotone note for a few seconds, clearly reaching inward for that infamous Slytherin cool he tended to use as a kind of war paint to deflect attempts to crack him open. His temper, she realised, was as bad as hers some days, and it tended to give away more than he was comfortable revealing. This was how he reoriented himself, she noted.</p><p>Funny enough, his preferred method of relaxation resembled very closely her preferred meditation method, too—chanting 'Om' in the Hindu tradition while closing her eyes and blanking her mind.</p><p>She wondered where he'd learned such a thing…or was it simply an uncanny coincidence that they shared a similar concentration practice, too?</p><p>"These feelings," he finally replied to her question after the chanting stopped, although she noted he kept his eyes closed, as if he was embarrassed to reveal such personal things to her. "The way you have always made me feel, Granger."</p><p>"And how do I make you feel?"</p><p>"You know," he said with a slight growl in warning.</p><p>"No, I really don't, and that's the problem," she confessed, throwing her cards down on the table, deciding now was not the time to dissemble or pretend any longer. She needed to let him know her truth, if only so she could get some kind of closure in this much. "I've never known with you where we stand. You confuse me, always have. Nothing you do makes sense. You say one thing, do another, and…you always inevitably hurt me in some way, Malfoy."</p><p>His lids fluttered opened and then he was moving before she could think to counter him.</p><p>As he closed the distance between them in a smooth move, her heart began pounding in her chest hard enough to hurt.</p><p>What was the man up to now?</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. Trust</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <hr/><p>Draco stopped with only inches separating them.</p><p>"You don't know me? Really? Then why are you here," he pointed out the obvious. "You've put yourself and your precious Second Order into my hands, and you're going with my plan. Not Weasley's, not Potter's, not Krum's...<em>mine.</em>" He leaned forward and tilted his head to get the fringe out of his eyes, forcing her to meet his pointed look and refusing her the opportunity to flinch from his next question. "Tell me, Granger, why would someone as smart as you do that if you believed me to be so untrustworthy?"</p><p>Hermione bit the inside of her mouth, considering how best to answer.</p><p>Of course he'd phrased his question in such a way as to impugn either her intelligence or her intentions towards the Order should she decide to reply in a manner less than logical or honest, leaving her little choice but to answer in only the one of two ways. She'd have to either admit to an astounding amount of idealism where he was concerned or an utter lack of responsible and rational consideration for his plans, thus admitting to putting the Order and Harry at risk on a hunch.</p><p>Clever, little git. He'd outmanoeuvred her in four short sentences.</p><p>The truly irritating thing was he was correct in that she'd leapt at the chance to investigate his claims, believing him with little proof, showing a distinct brand of trust in him that he hadn't deserved.</p><p>Such a decision hadn't been based on boredom while on the dead end trail of the horcruxes, however, nor even out of some misplaced Gryffindor desire to be an acclaimed heroine of this war's tale while standing in Harry's larger shadow. The fact of the matter was hope had won out; despite all logic to the contrary, she'd <em>wanted</em> to believe in Malfoy's redemption arc, to fit together the bizarre puzzle pieces of their years-long clandestine interactions into a single, coherent picture at long last.</p><p>She wanted to believe he wasn't evil.</p><p>Needed to, really, because there was a part of her that simply couldn't reconcile that the boy who'd secretly smiled at her when no one else was looking, and who had passed her silly notes challenging her to think faster and smarter in their shared classes, and who had left her the occasional chocolate in her satchel was the rotten, little ferret everyone else assumed him to be.</p><p>The two faces of Draco Malfoy didn't match, and she wanted to know which version was the real one.</p><p>On the other side of that issue was an even bigger question, however: what did such a revelation lead to? What form did it ultimately take? Friends, perhaps, or only comrades in arms against the darkness...or something more intimate?</p><p>
  <em>...</em>
</p><p><em>His nose </em> <em>gently </em> <em>bumped hers and then their lips touched.</em></p><p>
  <em>Eyes wide, they stared at each other in mute wonder and fear as their mouths caressed, trembled.</em>
</p><p>This is why we always...</p><p>
  <em>She glanced into his wary gaze with wonder.</em>
</p><p>This is who he is behind the mask.</p><p>
  <em>It was a barely-there notion given life in those seconds, a whispered explanation of why they'd been dancing around one another for years. It was also a promise of what could be, of what their strange, covert flirtations had been leading up to...but then Draco was pulling back, unsure.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"No, don't stop!"</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Hermione's hands shook as they grabbed hold of his robes, and her knees were quaking hard enough to make her wobble.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>This was the explanation for why she'd sought him out, and why she'd spent hours researching the physical act of seduction. She was here to present him with a different choice, to take all the small inches they'd crossed towards each other and to give them a purpose.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>A potential.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He swayed towards her as if against his will, obeying the plea, but once more his mouth stopped a breath from hers.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"All or nothing, Granger," he whispered. "Decide. I can't-"</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"I know," she agreed, sealing the bargain. "I choose this."</em>
</p><p><em>A slight nod, and then he came to her, sweetly. H</em> <em>e dipped his head and tasted her again with tentative, soft measure, melting away her nervousness with each small pull and nip at her lips.</em></p><p>
  <em>All too soon, a different sort of anxiousness took hold of her and when it swept over them both, there was simply no going back.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>...</em>
</p><p>While her first experience with sex had been lovely, the end result had been heartbreaking.</p><p>So, despite his addictive allure, did she really want to risk returning to that place of crushing defeat ever again? Perhaps it would be the more prudent and judicious practice to keep her personal feelings at a distance this time, for they never failed to get her into all levels of Gryffindor-esque trouble, especially where Slytherin's fallen prince was concerned.</p><p>"I'm here because your defection is proof to the rest of the world that pure-blood eugenics is a fraud," she replied at long last, opting for a half-truth based on logic. It was, after all, a much safer a place to stand when dealing with Malfoy's unnatural hold over her. "Your helping the Order in this manner justifies that people like me deserve legal equality within the system, and that such an ideal is worth fighting to protect."</p><p>His lips twitched with annoyance, as if he was disappointed that she'd chosen to hide behind philosophical arguments.</p><p>"So, then, you admit you're using me for a personal and political agenda...again."</p><p>She frowned as he turned things around on her.</p><p>"When exactly did I use you-"</p><p>"Last year," he cut her off, and began circling around her as he talked, "when you seduced me in a clumsy attempt to get me to drop my assignment for the Dark Lord. You do remember that cunning little scheme, don't you? In the Room of Requirement, when you magically appeared before me with a proposition I'd only ever dreamed about hearing from that mouth of yours." He stopped behind her and bent to press his warm lips close to her cold ear, murmuring like the Devil in January. "You were as ruthless as any Slytherin female I've met, begging and whimpering for me not to stop. Did you really think I could resist such temptation, even as it was obvious you had an agenda behind it?"</p><p>Heart pounding with a unique rhythm of fear, humiliation, and unexpected arousal, Hermione remained as stiff as a statue to discourage him from touching her, despite the fact he made no move to actually do so.</p><p>
  <em>"It's my first time, too."</em>
</p><p>"You lied," she said around a mouth thick with disappointment. "You said you hadn't had sex-"</p><p>"I hadn't, at that point. I'd done other things, of course, but you enjoyed what I swore to only give to my wife one day."</p><p>Now he was confusing her.</p><p>His mouth dipped closer as he whispered, "I said I was a virgin, Granger, not dead."</p><p>Ah, so he had been experimenting with other girls in his House prior to their liaison. She'd assumed, but hadn't the proof until now.</p><p>"It doesn't matter," she said, stepping away to put space between them. Malfoy's nearness was giving her the most impure thoughts imaginable. "I don't actually care-"</p><p>"Tsk, tsk, Granger. There's that pretending thing we were just discussing."</p><p>She scowled over her shoulder at him.</p><p>"I'm not pretending. It doesn't actually matter how much physical experience you've had. It's not my place to judge."</p><p>"Isn't it?"</p><p>The way he'd phrased that made it seem as if there was something more to the matter than he was letting on. Whatever it was, she didn't understand the implication.</p><p>"Not really. We're not actually dating."</p><p>At that, he gave a sinister-sounding chuckle that made the hairs on her arms stand up.</p><p>"No, I suppose we're not <em>dating</em>." Manoeuvering his body alongside hers, he stared off into the distance, towards the north where his home was situated. "Regardless, Granger, my mother's never going to buy our story if you continue to react to me as if you loathe me. You have to let me touch you, and you have to be fine with it."</p><p>Hell, but he was right. She was going to have to try harder than this if they wanted a chance of pulling off the impossible here. They couldn't afford to lose Narcissa Malfoy's help, not if they wanted a prayer of a chance to stop her demented sister's plans.</p><p>Jaw clenched, it took all her courage to reach out and take his hand in hers.</p><p>"Better?"</p><p>"It would be more convincing if you'd let me kiss and touch you again, and without your flinching."</p><p>Her heart started thumping again.</p><p>"I'm still angry at you," she admitted. "It's difficult to move past that enough to want to snog you."</p><p>Lungs inflating to capacity, he mulled over that sentiment and seemed to wrestle internally with his conscience.</p><p>"Would it help if I said that if I could change time, I would go back to that afternoon and take your offer?"</p><p>He gave her fingers a gentle squeeze, to remind her that he was with her now.</p><p>"Maybe," she hedged, secretly enjoying the warmth of his palm pressed so intimately against hers. It reminded her of the afternoon in question, when he'd held her hand as he'd pushed into her for the first time. "Why don't you tell me more and we'll see."</p><p>There were two starts and stops before he finally said, "You're the brave one, Granger, always have been. That day, you chose me. You decided our fates in less than a second. I'm not that courageous, though. Yes, I'd <em>said</em> 'all or nothing', but even then I knew I couldn't live up to that bargain...at least not in the way you'd wanted."</p><p>
  <em>"Decide. I can't-"</em>
</p><p>He sighed, pushed a frustrated hand through his hair.</p><p>"If I'd failed his tasks, the Dark Lord would have skinned my parents alive in front of me, just to make his point." He jerked his sharp chin towards his family's home in the far-off distance. "I couldn't risk them. If there had been another approach, one guaranteed, I would have gone with it, but...I just couldn't see it. I couldn't find a way out."</p><p>It was clear from Malfoy's expression that this confession was a painful one, as Slytherins, in general, rarely conceded anything, especially when it came to their feelings and most especially when it came to admitting they were wrong.</p><p>In that way, they were very much like Gryffindors.</p><p>Well, he'd held out the olive branch, taken the step towards reconciliation. Oddly, Hermione believed him, too. Her instincts weren't blaring any warning bells, and over the last year especially, she'd learned to trust her womanly intuition.</p><p>She should show the same bravery and hold out her hand, metaphorically, in the name of fairness.</p><p>"I understand," she told him, squeezing his fingers back and feeling the knot in her chest loosen a bit as they stepped together towards forgiveness. "You were caught between Scylla and Charybdis, a no-win scenario."</p><p>It took a lot for her to admit that he really had been in a losing situation, one which could have ended much more tragically for him if he'd made one critical misstep. He'd made the decision that best protected his interests, and she couldn't fault him for that, really. If the tables had been turned, and it had been her parents under the thumb of a horrid snake-man who just wouldn't die... It was hard to imagine that, much less know how she might react.</p><p>And it's not as if the Order would have been in a better position in either case, as Dumbledore had been doomed already by then, the curse ravaging him inside and out. His death had been a mercy kill, really.</p><p>"Isn't the saying, 'a rock and a hard place'?" he teased.</p><p>"The lesser of two great evils," she agreed.</p><p>"Except, you could never be that," he said, lifting her closed hand in his and placing it over his heart. "Your soul is so good, it practically shines, Granger. Your fingernails, on the other hand..." He examined them. "These are vicious weapons. My shoulders still bear the scars from where you dug in as we-"</p><p>She elbowed him, embarrassed that she'd clawed the cat out of him just as she'd come undone underneath him.</p><p>"Don't be vile."</p><p>He laughed. "Why not? You like it when I am."</p><p>Her smile overtook her common sense.</p><p>"Maybe."</p><p>The seriousness of the moment quickly returned, however, scaring off any jot of amusement.</p><p>"Since we are being fairly honest with each other," she braved, "I was <em>so</em> angry with you for not trusting in me, especially after... Well, <em>after.</em> But over the last year, living on the run, hearing Harry's horror stories about Tom Riddle and listening to the reports over the wireless... I must admit I can better see things from your perspective. I simply can not imagine what it was like living with him in your home, knowing he had your mother and father both at wand point."</p><p>That concession seemed to go a long way in convincing Malfoy to open up even more.</p><p>"Listen to me, Granger: stay as far away from the Dark Lord as you can. He's an utter monster."</p><p>"I've never actually seen him in person, you realise, not even from afar."</p><p>The closest she'd come was the debacle at Godric's Hollow over Christmas. When she'd gotten Harry out after Nagini's attack, there had been a dark, shadowy figure approaching the house just as they'd Apparated away. That, she'd presumed, had been Voldemort answering his pet snake's call with magic that shouldn't have been possible and was still a curiosity to her. The myth of a 'familiar' for a witch or wizard, a magical animal who shared the memories and thoughts with its caretaker, was just that: unsubstantiated rumour and persistent superstition. And yet, Nagini had been able to summon her master from afar...</p><p>It was another thing to add to the growing list of questions she wanted answers to someday.</p><p>"Consider yourself lucky, then," he said. "There isn't anything human left of him, aside from an insatiable hunger for power. He's a nightmare come to life."</p><p>As he moved to step before her so they were face-to-face once more, he twisted their hands to keep her fingers pressed against his heart. "If this plan fails, promise me that you'll leave me behind and run. Apparate out or fight to get away. Do whatever it takes." The earnestness in his eyes had her defenses coming down again. "Just do <em>not</em> let him capture you. Ever."</p><p>It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him what to expect if the worst happened, or even why he cared so much, but he was touching her again, reaching out with a careful hand to tuck back behind her ear some stray hairs. The slide of his fingertips against her skin had her shivering...but not with fear.</p><p>"I'll do what I can to ensure you get away," he promised, "but it would be impossible to free you once he had you in his clutches. And the things he would do to you..." His long fringe fell into his eye again as he shook his head back and forth. "He would rape your mind and break your will before killing you. Don't give him that chance."</p><p>"I...I won't," she agreed, "but I won't leave you behind either. We're allies in this, right?"</p><p>His fingers tangled in her hair, his nails scraping deliciously along her scalp as he took hold of her and pulled her forward.</p><p>"I don't want you to risk yourself," he told her, "especially not for me."</p><p>Her heart was pounding as she lifted her chin, refusing to back down.</p><p>"I will, though," she admitted. "I can't help it. It's all I've ever seemed to do with you, Draco: take chances."</p><p>He groaned as he bent his head and took her lips in a kiss that left no doubt as to his desire for her. His mouth was hot, his tongue slick and sweet.</p><p>It was just as she remembered...</p><p>Visions of Viktor's kiss intruded on the lovely moment, however, as did a sweeping wave of guilt following in its wake. It had only been two days since she and he had lain in the wind-whipped grass on a patch of solid dune and-</p><p>Pulling back, she took a deep breath and let it out on a shaky exhale that screamed of the need not to stop, to continue plundering until their bodies were trembling and sated. The hunger was strong enough to make her knees weak.</p><p>It was, she thought, the universe's most ironic twist of fate that she was attracted beyond sanity to Draco Malfoy, a dark wizard whose true motivations had always been and still were quite unknown to her.</p><p>He was right: she did trust him...but only up to a point.</p><p>She trusted him with her life, but not her heart.</p><p>Disentangling them, she stepped backwards until her shoulders collided with a tree. Malfoy made no move to follow; he merely scrutinized her through a narrowed gaze. He shoved his hands in his pockets and watched her put distance between them in more ways than one.</p><p>"We won't be kissing like that in front of your mother," she told him, making it clear where the line was to be drawn. She hadn't realised until just then how much she'd let her defences drop. "No matter how much it may convince her, <em>that</em> won't be happening again."</p><p>His lips curled with dark amusement.</p><p>"We'll keep it chaste, then," he agreed, "in public, anyway."</p><p>She frowned at him, not liking his implication.</p><p>"In private, too."</p><p>His wicked chuckle made it clear exactly what he thought of her plans.</p><p>"Come on, Granger, it's time I formally introduced my fiancée to my mother."</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0013"><h2>13. Outfoxed</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>In novel canon Hermione had a run-in with Narcissa and Draco at Madam Malkin's in Diagon Alley in August of 1996 alongside Harry and Ron – 'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince', Chapter 6 ('Draco's Detour').</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <hr/><p>Lady Malfoy had been as intimidating as Hermione remembered: beautiful, poised, fashionable…with all the charm of a serpent waiting to strike.</p><p>"<em>Draco, darling, where have you been? Your father and I worried for your absence."</em></p><p>"<em>A short detour to collect someone important, Mother: Hermione Granger, this is my mother, Lady Swindon, Narcissa Malfoy. Mother, this is Hermione Granger…my fiancée."</em></p><p>Rather than draw her wand on the spot, Narcissa had simply received her son with a kiss to the cheek, gently admonishing him for his unannounced disappearance, and bade him and his 'future bride' to join her to discuss their development.</p><p>"<em>Well, what an interesting surprise this is. Please, do come in and sit down. Mopsy, prepare tea for our guests."</em></p><p>"<em>Mother, we've just come a long way. Isn't lunch available?"</em></p><p>"<em>In a bit, my Dragon. Right now, I am positively curious as to how it is that you and Miss Granger have become acquainted in a manner so intimate as to lead to a marriage proposal."</em></p><p>The woman's posture and presentation as she'd taken a seat on the couch opposite her son and his 'intended' would have put the Queen of England to shame. She'd smoothed her dress across her lap and had crossed her ankles just so, and had sat as if she ruled the world.</p><p>Hermione had attempted to mimic her to keep them on even ground, but Draco had showed absolutely no interest in playing the same game. He'd sat next to her, lounging back into the couch's cushions with a dragonesque sprawl, and he'd smiled at his mother's obviousness. In truth, he'd reminded Hermione very much of Crookshanks when he'd toy with a visiting owl.</p><p>The conversation between her and the Lady Swindon hadn't gone at all as Hermione had anticipated, either. Rather than a cut direct and the Killing Curse directed her way, Hermione had been on the receiving end of some excellent Darjeeling tea and polite conversation.</p><p>Her hostess had shown nothing but pleasant acceptance in the face of her and Draco's lies of having found star-crossed love through their childhood rivalry—she attracted to his clever wit and dashing charm, he attracted to Hermione's 'forbidden' status and her ambitious intelligence.</p><p>"<em>Indeed. It certainly sounds as if the two of you are sympatico."</em></p><p>"<em>We're soul mates, Mother. That's to be expected."</em></p><p>"<em>Soul mates? My, how romantic, my Dragon."</em></p><p>"<em>H-he's just being overly-dramatic for effect, Lady Malfoy. Aren't you, Draco?"</em></p><p>"<em>If you say so, love."</em></p><p>"<em>I-I think what he's trying to say, my Lady, is we may be entering the new, more progressive millennia soon, but there's still room for a dash of old-fashioned romance."</em></p><p>"…<em>Yes, some ancient traditions are best kept, Miss Granger. I entirely agree."</em></p><p>After that, Narcissa had smoothly congratulated the both of them on taking such an enormous step, and then proceeded to play twenty questions with Hermione about her background, seemingly interested in her Muggle roots.</p><p>It was, Hermione thought even now, a most convincing performance on the other woman's part. Narcissa had seemed entirely unfazed that her son had randomly skipped off without word only to reappear with a key member of the Second Order of the Phoenix at his side—someone Voldemort would kill them all for harbouring, rather than turning her over for prisoner processing. Then to claim he was heels-over-cauldron for her on top of it…</p><p>It was obvious their hostess hadn't believed them.</p><p>In fact, in an odd way, Draco's mother had acted as if she'd <em>expected</em> her son to come home after being missing for days with some elaborate lie upon his tongue to tell. Hermione figured that it must be some bizarre Slytherin thing, because nothing that lot did was ever normal and they continually played some convoluted cat-and-mouse game with each other.</p><p>—And with everyone else.</p><p>"<em>Tell me, Miss Granger, how do you feel about children?"</em></p><p>"<em>We're still young, Mother."</em></p><p>"<em>I was asking your intended, Draco. Please allow her to speak her mind."</em></p><p>"<em>C-children?"</em></p><p>"<em>Yes, offspring are of paramount importance to pure-blood lineages, as I am sure you are quite aware, my dear. We expect Draco to uphold that one tradition, at least."</em></p><p>"<em>I-I-I really hadn't intended on a family until I was much older, to speak plainly. I have career aspirations after the war is won, you see."</em></p><p>"<em>Do you, indeed? How awfully ambitious of you, Miss Granger! Tell me, what position will you campaign to win under the Dark Lord's Ministry?"</em></p><p>The woman had made her point.</p><p>Worse, that awful revelation had given her the opening she'd been waiting to exploit as well, as Hermione had been knocked for a six by the implication that Voldemort was going to win.</p><p>Losing her mental footing, shocked by the sheer terror of the idea of Voldemort taking over, Hermione had dropped all her mental shields…and in that blink of an eye, Narcissa had struck. The Legilimency spell had been lightning fast and unexpectedly subtle, quickly in and out.</p><p>Ironically, the kiss Hermione had shared with Draco earlier that day had been her only saving grace.</p><p>That moment in the wintery glade had been weighing on her since it had happened, and so it had been <em>that</em> memory that Narcissa had encountered when she'd invaded Hermione's mind. The press of Draco's mouth to hers, how soft and warm his lips had felt, and the familiar feel of his hand holding hers…</p><p>The woman had seen everything, knew Hermione's real feelings about her son. She knew the kiss hadn't been the first between her son and his Muggle-born rival…and that there was a greater depth to those feelings than even Hermione had been willing to admit.</p><p>She pinched the bridge of her nose now to ward off the headache that was throbbing behind her eyelids and which she felt all the way to the tips of her toes.</p><p><em>Foolish,</em> she admonished herself.</p><p>She'd been unforgivably careless, allowing that viperous woman's refined civility to lull her into lowering her defences enough for a single shock to permit an opening into her skull. Draco had warned her that his mother was clever and devious, but Hermione had been been arrogant, believing she could handle Narcissa Malfoy…and in so doing, she'd given the witch the perfect opportunity.</p><p><em>I've failed</em>, she thought with dismay as she dropped her hand from her head and peeked through the curtain onto the mansion's sprawling back gardens. She hadn't been a good enough actress, even though she'd promised everyone she would do whatever it took to succeed.</p><p>The only questions remaining were how could she escape, and would Draco help her?</p><p>From the view from the third floor, she could see the back wall far off in the distance, a long and menacing façade of black stone that encircled the property's boundaries. She was betting they were warded over every square inch to prevent trespassing by 'undesirables'. Most likely that would be a dead end for her.</p><p>To the right side of the yard, there was a small, man-made lake that had frozen over with a white gravel walking trail encircling it. A large, white gazebo with space enough for a small breakfast party to sit and enjoy the scenery was situated on the far edge of the lake. A hiding spot, perhaps, but only temporary as it was too open and too obvious. It was also too easy to be cornered there, as there was nothing behind it but the wall.</p><p>Not a good plan, that way.</p><p>Off to the left there was a carriage house and what appeared to be a fenced pasture for flying horses. That might provide an opportunity, if whatever species of horse the Malfoys used hadn't been trained to obey only certain people or commands… She might have to risk it.</p><p>As one approached the house, well-trimmed hedges and thorny rose bushes dotted the landscape in symmetrical lines that fell in patterns resembling runes—for decoration or by design to function as another sort of warding? She couldn't tell, honestly, and would have to ask Draco. It could be those contained traps to prevent one from attempting a run for the horses.</p><p>An escape by such means seemed moot as it occurred to her that there was no snow anywhere on the property…which meant there was some sort of topside Shield charm over the whole of the Malfoy land. The cold seeped in, but the wind and weather stayed out. It would also repel any attempt by a person or a horse to pierce it from under the canopy it provided, for such charms were always two-way.</p><p>Blast it, there was no obvious escape that way at all!</p><p>The front yard had seemed similarly guarded by its ridiculously tall hedges and those idiotic peacocks, which Draco had warned had been trained to attack. They could, he'd said, peck a man to death in minutes.</p><p>Apparition only once outside the wards or fleeing by Floo it was, then.</p><p>Unless the house had some underground tunnels dug for emergencies…</p><p>The door to the sitting room of the suite she'd been assigned opened behind her and Malfoy came waltzing in with a big grin on his face. A quick wave of his wand ensured the room's privacy, and then he was throwing his body down onto the vintage Queen Anne two-seater nearby and leaning back, provoking her with a smirk worthy of the Devil.</p><p>"She didn't believe us," she pointed out to him before he could dare to claim otherwise. "Surely even you know that."</p><p>"Of course she doesn't believe you love me," he replied with a flippant wave of his hand, "but she knows you're <em>something</em> to me—important enough to risk bringing into her home in the middle of a war, and that's what has her in fits right now."</p><p>Hermione frowned.</p><p>"How is that helping our cause?"</p><p>He shrugged, as nonchalant as a leaf riding a happy breeze. "Because she'll come to you later and demand answers when she doesn't get them from me."</p><p>A light bulb went on in Hermione's rapidly pounding head.</p><p>"You've forced her curiosity. She'll have to interact with me now, like it or not." She had to give it up to the clever git—he definitely understood how to play people against each other. "You want me to be the one to convince her to turn spy for us."</p><p>His grin widened.</p><p>She snorted.</p><p>"Convenient for you," she pointed out, "playing the cat's paw, keeping your hands clean, just in case."</p><p>He shrugged.</p><p>"One does what one must."</p><p>"Or what is in one's best interest."</p><p>"Exactly."</p><p>"She performed Legilimency on me," she confessed. "It was superbly done, too. I almost didn't feel it until it was too late."</p><p>Draco's eyes shuttered to half-mast.</p><p>"Let me guess: she witnessed our earlier kiss."</p><p>Hermione gaped at him.</p><p>"You knew!" Crossing the distance, she pointed a finger in his face. "That's why you did it! You knew she'd sneak into my head and that she'd see us like…like that!"</p><p>His lips curled wickedly.</p><p>Something like disappointment unfurled in Hermione's belly.</p><p>So, the kiss had merely been a part of his plan too, a ruse to get under his mother's skin and prick the woman's pure-blood pride. Right now, Narcissa Malfoy, the Lady of Swindon, was probably throwing her precious bone china against walls and pacing up a storm of anger and concern at the thought of her baby boy 'sullying' their lineage with a Mudblood.</p><p>It hadn't actually meant anything to him—just a means to an end.</p><p>"How ruthless of you," she commented and turned back towards the windows. "Congratulations on that plan's success. It was a trick worthy of a Slytherin."</p><p>This was what she'd wanted, right?</p><p>"…<em>that won't be happening again."</em></p><p>She'd said it.</p><p>She'd meant it.</p><p>Getting tangled up with Malfoy again would only lead to more mistakes she would later regret. Besides, he couldn't be trusted worth a flip. Everything he did had an ulterior motive, and all of it was self-serving.</p><p>Obviously.</p><p>Malfoy was suddenly behind her and his mouth bent to her ear. She could see him in the window's reflection, his eyes meeting hers in the glass.</p><p>"I've wanted to do more than just kiss you for more than a year." His whisper ghosted across her flesh, a heated enticement as irresistible as sin. "The memory of you under me, Granger, of being inside you…it's kept me up at nights, made me want something I shouldn't."</p><p>A game. That's all this was to him. She had to remember that.</p><p>"You mean because I'm Muggle-born," she bitterly replied.</p><p>His hands slid over her hips, holding them in place as he pressed his hard chest into her back.</p><p>"I mean because you're <em>his</em> enemy, and technically supposed to be mine, and if the Dark Lord ever found out what we've done…what I still want to do to you, I'd be crucified as a traitor and strung up in the foyer of the Ministry to serve as an example of what disloyalty looks like."</p><p>What he still-?</p><p>"It's an obsession and it's about sex," she said, attempting to warn them both. "And it's definitely not healthy for either of us."</p><p>His chuckle tickled the nape of her neck as he lowered his mouth to the spot and placed a small kiss upon it.</p><p>"I knew you still wanted me."</p><p>The arrogance ruined the moment.</p><p>Hermione elbowed him in the gut and he released her with a grunt. She took that opportunity to move away from the window, from being trapped by the heat of his body and the memory of what it could do to her.</p><p>"What I want is to know when to expect your mother's riposte to the gauntlet you threw at her feet today," she said. "I want to know what her most predictable response might be, so I can anticipate how to counter her."</p><p>Malfoy sighed.</p><p>"Why is it always about work with you?" he asked, grinning and rubbing at his abdomen where her sharp blow had connected. "Relax, Granger. Why do you think I came to find you after circling like sharks around dearest Mum once you'd gone? I'm here to help you outmanoeuver her."</p><p>He hadn't been put off in the least by her rejection, which worried her. It meant he was going to keep trying to get into her bed, and given how tenacious a ferret he could be, she wasn't looking forward to having to come up with new and inventive ways of countering him at the same time as his mother.</p><p>Outmanoeuvering. It seemed she was going to be doing that a lot in the days to come.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>For the sake of this fic, the pure-bloods continue the traditions of maintaining any former Muggle titles they'd secured prior to the Statute of Secrecy being enacted. If you'll recall from Pottermore's website, J.K. Rowling wrote that for his services to King William I (a.k.a. William the Conqueror) in 1066-1067, Armand Malfoy had been given "a prime piece of land in Wiltshire, seized from local landowners, upon which his descendants have lived for ten consecutive centuries". Historically, after William I's conquest of Britain, he'd divided England into 'manors', the owners of which were titled 'barons'…hence Malfoy MANOR would have technically been a barony in Wiltshire somewhere, if what JKR wrote was applied to her universe, and so Armand would have been its first Baron. For the sake of this fic, I am stating this is the case, and therefore that Barony would have passed through the Malfoy family's male heirs until the Statute of Secrecy was put into full effect in 1692. </p><p>Furthermore, I am also stating for this fic that Malfoy Manor was situated in Swindon (a borough within Wiltshire) and that it had once been called the Barony of Swindon. </p><p>And finally, for this fic, I am stating that although the Muggle and magical world had severed ties in the 17th century, making the Barony of Swindon extinct in the Muggle world, the pure-blood wizarding families would have continued to cling to such titles, if only to continue the tradition of the right of primogeniture to secure property (and indeed, the Gringotts vault system works off of that same principal in novel canon, if you think about it). Those titles are just one more justification that the pure-bloods use to express their "right" to lord over others in this fanfic.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0014"><h2>14. Malfoy Manor-Day One</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Amorette Deneuve is an author in "Harry Potter: Wizards Unite" mobile video game. She was considered "the foremost expert on love potions and spells." She had "many published works about Love, among them, First Love, First Loss." (source: Harry Potter Wikia).</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <hr/><p>Despite all their planning, Narcissa Malfoy remained elusive to both Draco and Hermione over the next three days.</p><p>The house elf, Mippy, would only explain that her Mistress had gone away and she was unsure when the witch would return home when questioned on the matter. Not even Draco's command as one of her masters was enough to get the little creature to divulge more of an explanation.</p><p>Which meant the elf was first and foremost bound to her direct owners, the Lord and Lady of the house. Even as heir to the family estate and all its properties, Draco still ranked second in its loyalties…something Hermione would need to remember in case things became dire enough to require them to slip out from Narcissa's grasp.</p><p>
  <strong>~.~.~</strong>
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  <strong>MALFOY MANOR - DAY ONE</strong>
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  <strong>~.~.~</strong>
</p><p>The sitting room attached to the bedroom she'd been assigned had a comfortable chaise longue in the style of an antique Victorian fainting couch positioned in front of the fireplace. It had an agreeable slope to it, one perfect for reading. Hermione thought she may never again rise from it.</p><p>In fact, in between the hearth's cheery warmth, reading an enjoyable tale of feminine heroics by Amorette Deneuve, and her general exhaustion, she'd decided a bit of a late morning lie-in might just be in order.</p><p>Closing the book and snuggling down under a lap quilt, she closed her eyes.</p><p>Sometime later, the feeling of the book in her arms being pilfered by a clumsy hand woke her up.</p><p>Hermione quickly scrambled up to grab her bestseller back from the thief's clasp, but Malfoy was entirely too swift for her, lifting it high into the air and out of her reach. "What have we here?" he asked, closing the cover and reading its title. His high-pitched laughter a moment later had her gritting her back teeth. "You're reading <em>romance?</em> Are you serious?" He started thumbing through the book, his amusement growing with every turned page. "Well, it certainly isn't helping your game, is it? I mean, your idea of seduction was to tear open your robes and jump me. It worked, but talk about cheating the experience—"</p><p>She got up, circled around the furniture, and kicked him in the shin with the side of her foot, the way she'd been taught by Harry to fend off unwanted attackers.</p><p>"Ow!" he said, hopping back and inspecting his leg for damages. "The hell, witch? Cut your toenails this century, would you? Ow, damn!"</p><p>"You're lucky I'm not wearing shoes." Her cheeks burned with embarrassment as she shoved his shoulder and held her hand out for her book. "And that is not how <em>it </em>happened, you fibber! And also, Professor Critic, there's absolutely nothing wrong with romance novels, especially ones that feature an empowering female hero saving the backside of an ungrateful fool of a man!"</p><p>To her utter exasperation, he pulled a juvenile move and flipped the book opened to a random page in the middle and began to recite a rather explicit passage involving the brave heroine, the dashing hero, and a creative use for moustache wax.</p><p>Honestly, he was as bad as Ron sometimes!</p><p>Hermione cleared her throat and hoped her flush from the provocative words could be excused away by Draco's infuriating antagonism. "Why are you trespassing up on my privacy and stealing my things anyway?" she demanded of him. "Give it here!"</p><p>He shut the book with a business-like '<em>snap</em>' and dangled it just out of her reach.</p><p>"Technically, this is my thing as it's in my house…although I have to wonder which ancestor is responsible for such trash. I mean, who uses moustache wax anymore?" He preened like an arrogant, little lordling holding a winning hand of cards. "In any case, it's Malfoy property and that means you can only read your freaky smut upon my say-so, Granger—and I don't say so."</p><p>That did it.</p><p>A wiggle of her fingers and she hit him with a wandless Melofors Jinx, encasing his head in a pumpkin she'd conjured out of thin air. Immediately, he dropped the book to grip his head in an attempt to remove the pumpkin, growling out profanities at her when he discovered a Sticking Charm had been added there at the end to prevent such an attempt.</p><p>Hermione summoned the book to her before it hit the ground with a wandless, non-verbal <em>Accio</em>. "And as I'm the guest of honour in your house," she reminded him, leaving him to his struggles as she crossed the room into the bedroom to put the book down on the side table next to where she planned to sleep later that night, "I'm sure you meant not to be such a bad host by denying me a bit of harmless entertainment…because that would be just pumpkin-headed rude of you."</p><p>Mentally, she patted herself on the back for that clever little pun.</p><p>Behind her, Draco profaned up a storm.</p><p>"Get this bloody thing off me, you vindictive harpy!"</p><p>She reentered the sitting room and took in his measure with a wicked chuckle. "Are you sure? But the orange goes so well with that all-black ensemble you're overly fond of wearing "</p><p>"Granger, I'm warning you!"</p><p>"Just think, in nine months and with a cleverly cast <em>Lumos</em> under the rind, you wouldn't even have to worry about a costume for Halloween," she told him, finding the idea rather appealing. "Until then we can simply sell you to the public as the victim of an unfortunate vegetable breeding incident."</p><p>He referred to her as a rather unpleasant word, one rhyming with 'witch'.</p><p>"Oh, cease being such a baby. Walking around with a squash affixed to your head isn't <em>that</em> bad. There are worse things. Really, it's rather charming….trend-setting, even," she told him in between fits and giggles. "I mean, I hardly doubt anyone would actually notice the difference anyway."</p><p>At his wits end, Draco cast the strongest nullification spell he knew to reverse the jinx and its auxiliary charm. Fortunately for him, it didn't remove his head at the same time and the pumpkin popped out of existence. He glared at her then as he attempted to straighten his clothing and regain his dignity, small bits of pumpkin still stuck in his mussed hair.</p><p>Hermione pressed her lips together in a tight, firm line to keep from erupting into laughter and injuring his fragile masculinity any further.</p><p>"They're right about you," he growled at her finally, wagging a finger in her face as he brushed the other hand through his platinum cut to rid it of the bits and bobs. "You <em>are</em> an absolute terror."</p><p>Hermione fell onto the longue, laughing her silly head off.</p><p>"Har-har. Yes, alright. You've had your laugh for the week," he told her with undisguised annoyance. "Now come on, I have something to show you."</p><p>It took her fifteen minutes to dress and another ten to comb out the tangles from her curls, and then she met up with Malfoy on the top landing of the third floor. With a silent glare, still smarting from her trick, he led her silently down to the first level and then all the way towards the back of the house. There, he used a magical phrase to open a door that led into a rather well-stocked and expansive library. It wasn't quite as large as the one at Hogwarts, but it was certainly the largest she'd ever experienced outside of a public building.</p><p>"My mother has left the house today, according to Mippy. I don't know where she went, but I'll try to find out," he told her. "In the meantime, we need to research those collars. I've gathered all the books I could find on house elf bonding as a starting place, but honestly " He indicated a small pile of approximately twenty books on the lone desk in the vast room. "There isn't much. The Ministry usually does the job of binding a new house elf to a family that inherits it or procures it from another family. They have an entire department dedicated to magical creatures that registers the ownership rights."</p><p>"Yes, I know," she told him, circling the desk to pull the pile over to her to catalogue it. "I'd planned to work there after the war to revamp the laws regarding the ownership of other magical beings, once all of this mess is sorted."</p><p>When Draco didn't have a witty quip to come back with at that, she glanced up at him.</p><p>"Is it that idiotic Gryffindor bravery that allows you to be so cheerfully optimistic?" he asked her, his expression a mask of cynicism at her suggestion that the Second Order would win the war. "Or is it simply naivety? I can never tell with your lot."</p><p>That earned him a stern frown from her direction.</p><p>"I <em>have</em> to believe we are going to win," she told him. "I must work continually for that goal, no matter how bleak or hopeless things may seem. As a Muggle-born there is no other alternative for me, except death…and I will not go down without a fight."</p><p>Draco stared at her in silence for a long time, until finally his mouth turned up and a grudging admiration filled his gaze.</p><p>"Idiotic bravery, definitely," he said and rounded the desk to take a seat at her side, picking a volume at random to read from the pile. "Now shush. I can't concentrate with you talking my ear off all day."</p><p>Hermione watched him for a bit in silence before turning back to the pile to set aside the books she'd already read at Hogwarts from the school's copies. In the end, they had eight books she'd never encountered before and would need to read. Split two ways, that left them each with only four. That was a reading list she could dust off within two days, tops. She settled into the chair beside her Slytherin companion and cracked open the first volume, all thoughts of pumpkins, Halloween, and silly pranks set aside for the moment.</p><p>The issue of where the Lady Narcissa was off to, however, preyed at the back of Hermione's mind for the several hours they remained in the family's library, especially after Draco left around three o'clock to track down his mother.</p><p>He didn't return to collect her to escort her back up to her room to change until dinner time, and by then, the question of the Malfoy matriarch's goings-on had gnawed a hole in Hermione's stomach. Had she gone off to report them to her sister, or worse…to her husband?</p><p>Equally as worrisome: when would she be back?</p><hr/><p>By seven o'clock that night, Draco's mother was still not back and not even the enticement of a wonderfully cooked dinner of grilled rosemary lamb meatballs over a Pasta Pomodoro or a delicious raspberry-champagne posset for pudding could pull Hermione out of her anxious state.</p><p>The question of whether or not Narcissa would be foolish enough to turn them over to a Snatcher or a Death Eater had been easily dismissed hours before; one of the first possibilities she'd crossed off her list, in fact. The woman wouldn't risk Draco being accused of colluding with the enemy—a charge that would be levied when it came out he'd not only brought Harry Potter's best friend into his home without the use of chains and in a collar, but that he hadn't yet turned her in to the Dark Lord either. Worse, if he was probed by a strong Legilimens, the fact that he'd lain with a 'Mudblood' would come out as well, and such a thing would never stand in Voldemort's court.</p><p>No, there was no chance the Lady Malfoy would risk her baby boy's life, no matter her fidelity to the cause of blood prejudice.</p><p>That left very few options for her going so suddenly from her house, however.</p><p>Where would she have gone? Had she taken a trip to discuss her son's sudden love interest with her husband, who was stationed in France according to the last news she'd heard on the wireless back at Shell Cottage. Risking a letter with such a message would be folly, so it made sense that she'd rush off for a one-on-one with Lucius instead, to take his advice.</p><p>Or perhaps she'd gone to a friend's for a party or a prolonged social visit?</p><p>Whatever the truth, the woman's absence from the manor house was keenly felt by both her and Draco, although she suspected it was a bit more so on her side of things, as it was highly likely that her former lover might still be able to slither his way out of trouble if it came knocking for them…</p><p>"Granger, you're being too quiet now. It's irritating."</p><p>Her companion's abrupt, needlelike censure spooked her, as they'd been the first words out of his mouth since they'd sat for dinner two courses ago, and she accidentally fumbled her knife. It clanged against her fine china plate with a sharp ring before falling to the carpeted floor at her feet. She stared at it, embarrassed at so blatantly revealing what a bundle of nerves she was tonight.</p><p>It wasn't as if she didn't have any call to be, though. After all, with the manor's Mistress gone that left her all alone with Draco…in a magical mansion that was approximately the same size as Longleat House and which had almost as many bedrooms. Bedrooms with ginormous beds covered in luxurious silk sheets and soft, yielding mattresses. And romantic candlelight throwing secret shadows everywhere.</p><p>Honestly, the manor at night was either the creepiest place on earth or one giant invitation to sin, depending on a guest's mood.</p><p>"S-sorry," she offered with a twitchy smile. "It's been a long time since I've sat a formal dinner with such magnificent food."</p><p>"And here I thought you liked the idea of being romanced."</p><p>Her head snapped back on her neck as his words hit her with unexpected force.</p><p>"R-romanced?"</p><p>Before Draco could reply, the house elf moved in on her.</p><p>A blink later, Hermione had a fresh knife sitting next to her plate on the proper side and the fallen utensil had been disappeared from sight.</p><p>"Er, thank you," she replied a moment before the elf popped back out of the room with an adorable curtsy. "She's very…efficient," she told her dining companion with a sheepish smile, thankful for a distraction from the previous line of conversation.</p><p>"Mmm," Draco agreed, dabbing his mouth with the napkin on his lap before replacing it, "and an excellent cook." He indicated the food they were eating with a sweep of his hand.</p><p>She couldn't help but agree. The food was better than some of the nicest restaurants she'd visited with her parents over the years.</p><p>"Mippy really wants to be a Healer, though. It's her secret wish. She doesn't know I know that, by the way, so don't tell her."</p><p>Hermione nearly dropped her fork this time.</p><p>"H-How <em>do </em>you know that?" she asked, surprised by his revelation the he actually cared what a house elf desired.</p><p>He shrugged, and his shoulders stretched his well-cut dinner jacket in a way that had her quickly reaching for her glass of water and taking an ample swallow. After that, she tried not to notice too hard how he'd filled out a bit since last year. Apparently, Voldemort leaving his home as a result of failing to capture Harry upon his seventeenth birthday had done wonders for curing Draco's poor eating and sleeping habits. He looked like he'd put back on a little more than a stone's worth of weight and muscle since the previous June.</p><p>"I overheard her telling Dobby once, when I was a child and playing near the kitchens," he explained. "She would always heal his injuries."</p><p>She'd forgotten that Draco had once owned Dobby and that Lucius Malfoy had delighted in abusing the poor elf.</p><p>Had Draco ever been so cruel to his family's servants, too?</p><p>No, from the way Mippy looked at him, it was clear the little elf adored him, so perhaps he hadn't been as terrible a little snot to <em>everyone</em> in his life.</p><p>"She would also reset my bones and clean my scrapes. Theo—Theodore Nott, from our class—he and I would always get into mischief when we were younger. Usually, it ended in one or both of us limping around or bloodied up. Mippy took care of it and ensured our parents never found out."</p><p>His gaze was distant as he got lost in memories that had his lips twisting with amusement.</p><p>Hermione, too, became lost in a memory—one involving a particularly nasty conversation between Malfoy and Nott from a potential future that could already have been derailed, or which might still occur…</p><p><em>"</em> <em>You two-faced son-of-a-bitch, Nott! Is this how you treat old friends?"</em></p><p>
  <em>"Old friends? When were we ever that, Draco?"</em>
</p><p>It seemed strange to hear Draco speak of Theodore Nott now with such fondness after having heard that particular conversation plucked by accident from the ether of the time stream that she'd become unintentionally tied to, and she couldn't help but wonder at the possibility that somewhere along the line Theo might become bitter and resentful of his one-time friendship with the Malfoy heir.</p><p>Would she be the cause of that fracture?</p><p>She remembered Nott, of course, had noticed him in more than a passing way, even. When they'd been in second year, Ron had compared him to a rabbit for his chubby cheeks and twitchy nose, but Hermione recalled how he'd grown out of that characterization by the beginning of fifth year. The twitching had actually been a result of squinting because he'd needed glasses for hyperopia; a pair of smart spectacles had easily corrected that problem. As for the round face…puberty had fixed that, giving Nott squarer features and a strong jaw. The girls had swooned over him by the time sixth year had come around, in fact. Hermione could admit to having admired not only his pretty blue eyes with their long, dark lashes, but also his fine intellect and absolute wand proficiency when assigned to walk Prefect rounds with him. The fact that he'd spent most of his time running as a 'lone wolf' among his own Housemates, who tended to congregate in gangs, had further caused her to notice him.</p><p>Of course, even if he had been interested in something more than acquaintances—something he'd never given her any indication, to be fair—it had been far too late by the time the thought had even passed through her head as she'd been thoroughly ensnared by another Slytherin then, one whose suspicious comings and furtive goings had her obsessed with discovering his darkest secrets, and then in finding a way to save him from them…</p><p>"—Mippy's always taken care of me," Malfoy was saying, jarring her out of her inner musings.</p><p>"Did you take her to Hogwarts with you then, while we were in session?"</p><p>She knew some of the richest pure-bloods had a familial house elf assigned to their children while they attended school—primarily to serve as a status symbol or to sneak extra food out of the kitchen at nights.</p><p>"No, she's my mother's elf, technically. I don't have one of my own. It was Madam Pomfrey to the rescue anytime I was injured at school. Mippy did most of her mending work on me when I was a younger child," he told her, setting aside the past to return to cutting up his meal on his plate, "and entirely too reckless."</p><p>"You mean you're not reckless now?"</p><p>He gave a low chuckle that had Hermione's chest fill with unexpected warmth.</p><p>This moment reminded her of when they'd been back in school, before the war. The friendly banter and begrudging smiles… Were they actually behaving like quasi-friends again?</p><p>"Now I'm only reckless where <em>you're</em> concerned," he told her, lifting his wine glass and taking a sip of the light red varietal they'd been poured earlier to go along with their meal.</p><p>His gaze met hers over the edge of his glass, and stayed locked as he licked his bottom lip of residual wine.</p><p>Hermione's face flushed with heat, bringing her right back around to her earlier musings about being alone with him for the night.</p><p>Obviously, she knew they weren't actually "alone" in the strictest definition of the term, as there was Mippy, more than thirty magical portraits, and according to Draco, a "moldy dungeon complete with an uncountable number of spiders, and one ghost tucked away in the wine cellar". Still, it was the first time since their one and only afternoon in the Room of Hidden Things last year that she and he would be together all night in an enclosed space without the benefit of another living human being in the immediate vicinity. There would be no adult supervision to interrupt, interfere, or inhibit anything Draco might be planning for her, and Hermione was feeling intense anxiety at the thought.</p><p>Merlin almighty, where was Minerva McGonagall when a witch <em>actually</em> needed her?</p><p>She reached for her water glass again, taking a good swallow of its contents, and dropped her gaze to her plate.</p><p>"D-did you have any luck finding out where you mother is off to?" she asked, turning the conversation again.</p><p>"I'm not sure," he said, staring into his glass with a frown. It was as if the admission pained him—which she was sure it had, as Draco had been supremely arrogant about this whole plot from the get-go and now to have an unexpected wrench thrown in his plans… Well, Hermione was sure he was silently as vexed by the move as she was, honestly. "She took a conveyance from the stables, but her magical signature led me astray once I was off the grounds. I was nearly to Bath before I realised she'd laid down a false trail."</p><p>"Well, is there <em>anything</em> that can be deduced from her trip? We know she could Floo to the Ministry, if necessary, so it wouldn't have been there that she went."</p><p>"And the carriage is drawn only by one horse and is a short-distance conveyance," he explained. "It can go fifty miles or so at a time. It couldn't make it to Canterbury without a change of horses, much less across the channel to France to where my father is currently staying, if she'd gone there to discuss us with him in person. That means she went somewhere close."</p><p>Ah, so she'd been right to suspect this possibility.</p><p>"Do you think she's visiting Bellatrix, to tell her we're here?" It would be the worst possible scenario, but fortunately one they'd planned for. "We should leave, as discussed," she said, feeling an anxious swoop in her belly at the thought of Voldemort and his army of Death Eaters appearing at the Manor's front door any minute now…</p><p>Draco set his glass down harder than necessary and all that displeasure was suddenly turned on her.</p><p>"No."</p><p>"But—"</p><p>"No. I don't think she went to visit my aunt, nor do I believe she will sell us out to the Dark Lord. My mother's angry, but not irrational, Granger. It would mean my death to be found out here with you, and she knows it."</p><p>Yes, she'd already deduced as much, but still—</p><p>"You wanted this," he reminded her. "You wanted us to deal with my aunt, to take her off the board."</p><p>"And you knew I would," she countered with heat. Setting her utensils down, she politely wiped her mouth and reached for her water glass again to stave off dry mouth. "Don't pretend you didn't know Ron would eventually let the slave collars slip in conversation and what my reaction would be. You knew I'd come out of hiding and demand your aunt's madness be stopped. Don't bother denying it."</p><p>He leaned back in his chair, an arrogant smirk curling his lips.</p><p>"Of course, you're entirely too predictable, Granger," he told her. "That's your problem."</p><p>"No, <em>you</em> are my problem," she candidly replied, wiping the amusement from his face in one short sentence. "You and your infuriating Slytherin mind games! I know there's something more going on here than just dealing with Bellatrix Lestrange. Why won't you just tell me what this is really all about?"</p><p>"I'd say it's rather obvious, wouldn't you? We both have a problem that needs a permanent solution."</p><p>"You mean your aunt and her deranged plans to enslave the world?"</p><p>"Among other things, yes."</p><p>"And what, pray tell, are those 'other things'?"</p><p>"You'll know when the time's right," he told her with an absent wave of his hand while reaching for his wine glass again. He downed its contents in a single go, and then called for the house elf to appear and to remove their dinner plates, since it was clear neither of them would be eating anymore of it. "Let Miss Granger try the sweet you've prepared for us, if you would, Mippy."</p><p>"Yes, Master," the little elf said and hurried off.</p><p>They sat in an angry silence until the elf returned with their possets.</p><p>As they waited, Hermione glared at her host, who seemed rather amused by the mental daggers she threw his way. He sipped quietly on his water, watching her with grey eyes dancing a fox's delight.</p><p>Once dessert arrived, Hermione dug in, but once more her concentration was elsewhere and so she couldn't truly enjoy her pudding. "You're after something more," she grumbled and pointed her spoon at him. "I want to know what."</p><p>He laughed at that.</p><p>"We don't always get what we want…or expect, Granger," he told her with a mysterious smile. "Get used to it. I have."</p><p>She spent the rest of the meal attempting to puzzle out what he meant by that.</p>
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